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AUDRESS 



ON THE 



ANNEXATION OF TEXAS, 



AND THE ASPECT OF 



§ ' SLAVERY IN THE UxNITED STATES, 

I IN conne^tSn TH&iUlfnTH : 



1. 



DELIVERED IN BOSTON NOVEMBER 14 AND^, 1845. 




By STEPHEN C. Pl^tlPS. 



BOSTON: 

WM. CROSBY AND H. P. NICHOLS, 

118 Washington Stueet. 

1845. 



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A VAST question, vitally affecting the national character, 
and involving the most serious political consequences, and 
which must be determined in conformity with, or in disregard 
of, the highest obligations of duty, demands our considera- 
tion. 

Let us deliberate. I differ, perhaps, from some who hear 
me, in thinking that deliberation, as preparatory to action, 
rather than action without deliberation, is the duty of tlie 
present moment. There are those, as we know, who, with 
their devotion for years to the contemplati(^ of the subject, 
and the absorption of their feelings in the |ervor which it 
excites, have become so famiHar with all its relations and 
exigencies, and have pledged themselves before the world to 
so unalterable a purpose, that no event finds them unprepar- 
ed to meet it. They even keep themselves ahead of the 
rapid progress of events, and. living in the fi/ture, are all the 
while devising measures which can become practicable only 
when others shall have actually reached the position which 
they in imagination already occupy, and when, perhaps, from 
the effect of increased intelligence and reflection, the prev- 
alence of more enlightened views of interest and duty, all 
such measures may be unnecessary. Whatever commen- 
dation, therefore, they deserve for forecast, intense ardor, 
and resolute determination, they must be content to await the 
slower action of other minds, and to abide the result, so dis- 
tant from their goal, which is now attainable. They must 
consider, what we all should consider, that it is no less true 
than lamentable, that a large portion of our fellow-citizens 
are not even yet prepared to express their opinions upon the 
present state of this momentous question ; that information 
is still to be diffused, that facts are yet to be learned, and 



that the spirit which the occasion requires is to be evoked 
from the apathy and indifTerence which pervade the commu- 
nity. 

I say again, Let us deliberate. I know full well, — I feel it 
deeply, — that Massachusetts must be prepared for early ac- 
tion, or fail to redeem the j)ledge she has given to the country. 
Many eyes are turned on Massachusetts. By common con- 
sent she occupies the front rank in the struggle of the Free 
States against the extension of slavery, and by her conduct 
she must prove whether she will continue true to herself and 
an example to them. For the reason, therefore, that we oc- 
cupy a conspicuous position, and are made responsible for 
important consequences, and because the manner in which 
we perform our duty ouglit not to be disregarded, I earnest- 
ly desire that the brief opportunity which is afforded by every 
meeting like the present may be used for deliberation, and 
that our deliberation may manifest such a spirit as will 
render our action what it should be, dignified, discreet, and 
effectual. 

In considering the subject before us, I do not propose at 
this time to enter into all its details, or to dwell upon any of the 
facts relating to it, except those which are of recent occur- 
rence. The plot for the annexation of Texas, in its earlier 
stages, was marked by a succession of incidents, which but 
slowly developed the foul purpose in which it originated, and 
did not lead m^ny to suspect the means by which it was to 
be accomplished. At the Faneuil Hall Convention in Jan- 
uary, 1 attempted to recount them, and, tedious as was the 
task, 1 did not fipd it difficult to show, that, from the outbreak 
of the insurrectton in the department of Texas consequent 
upon the abolition of slavery in Mexico, every step that was 
taken to promote a revolution, and to establish temporarily 
a new government, was taken under the advice, and chiefly 
through the agency, of slave-holders belonging to the United 
States, who were intent upon defeating the anti-slavery poli- 
cy of the Mexican republic, and sought at the same time, 
through the accession of a vast slave-holding territory, to ex- 
tend and perpetuate the power of the Slave States in this 
Union. This design, as recently avowed by Mr. Calhoun, 
was scarcely concealed by his friends in their first move- 
ments to obtain the recognition of Texan independence, and 
immediate annexation therewith ; and althougli at that time 
partially frustrated, and afterwards obstructed from the want of 
executive cooperation during the administration of Mr. Van 
Buren, the evidence is conclusive that it was tenaciously ad- 



hered to by leading slave-holding politicians of both parties, 
and that it thus became an available expedient to Mr. Tyler, 
when, in his desperate circumstances, he was ready to seize 
upon any project that might make him the centre of a new 
alliance. Under his auspices, —through the efforts of Mr. 
Upshur and Mr. Calhoun,— by a course of diplomacy the 
most extraordinary and unwarrantable upon our records, a 
treaty was concluded with Texas, and submitted to the 
Senate for ratification. Its ratification was anxiously await- 
ed and pertinaciously urged, as ilic onhj constitutional mode 
of fnal action upon the subject in the vieio of the friends of 
annexation ; and when the ratification was refused, it was at 
first the undivided impression upon the public mind through- 
out the country, that the " vexed question " was finally and 
efl^ectually disposed of Still, unprecedented, unauthorized, 
and wholly unjustifiable as had been the entire series of pro- 
ceedings connected with annexation, both in Texas and the 
United States, before the negotiation of the treaty, and ex- 
ceptionable as was the treaty in the view of many who re- 
garded it as providing in a constitutional ibrm for an uncon- 
stitutional object, and who saw that it had been negotiated 
under the most corrupting and compulsory influences, it was 
reserved for the madness of desperation, in the last resort, to 
attempt and succeed in an artifice, which, had it been pro- 
posed in advance, would not probably have found a sane ad- 
vocate throughout the Slave States, or even in Texas itself 
The object of this artifice was to revive the treaty in the 
shape of a joint resolution, introduced into the House of Rep- 
resentatives upon the special recommendation of the Presi- 
dent ! 

Some of you must now remember, that, when we separated 
from each other at the Faneuil Hall Convention, there were 
those who undertook to relieve our apprehensions of the cer- 
tainty of annexation by assuring us that " it could never be 
brought to pass." At that time the joint resolution had just 
been carried through the House of Representatives by a 
hard-wrung vote. Intrigue and corruption, the party cabal, 
the edict from the Hermitage, executive patronage, as exer- 
cised alike by the President about to retire and the President 
about to succeed him, had wrought their usual eflJect upon 
the doe-faced, venal Democracy of the Free States, while a 
few slave-holding Whigs, with their accustomed treachery in 
every such exigency, were found ready, at the last moment, 
not to follow in the rear, but to lead the van of the unholy alli- 
ance, and to signalize themselves as the authors of the pro- 
1* 



ject by which the fatal blow was to be struck at the Consti- 
tution, and the Union to be endangered. Still the Senate 
had not acted, and it seemed to be the abandonment of the 
last hope of the republic to doubt the wisdom or distrust 
the firmness of the great majority of that conservative body. 
They had resisted the first attempt of the Executive, when, 
in a mistaken reliance upon their cooperation, he had sub- 
mitted the treaty for ratification ; and the pledge of their 
character was given to the country, that now, when the treaty- 
making power had been set at naught, in a case involving an 
insult to their dignity and an invasion of their rights and of 
the reserved rights of the States which they represented, they 
would not shrink from their highest duty. Yes, when the 
Convention met in January, the Senate had not acted ; and I 
well recollect that a respected friend, who did not appear in 
his proper place upon that occasion, stated, as a reason for his 
absence, that he deemed all popular action uncalled for and 
inexpedient, since the Senate might be trusted to sustain it- 
self. I well recollect, too, to what persuasion most of us 
yielded, not to give to our proceedings the character which 
they might properly have assumed, if the Senate was not to 
be relied on, and if no hope remained but in a special and 
emphatic exercise of the sovereignty of the people. 

The Convention adjourned ; and it soon became manifest 
that the attempt would be persevered in to undermine the 
last bulwark of the Constitution, — that the Senate was in 
danger, — and that the Senate was overthrown ! For every 
other cause than this, it had again and again maintained the 
Constitution and saved the country. It had often stood be- 
tween a dornineering Executive and a subservient House of 
Representatives, and had stayed the arm of usurped power, 
and asserted alike its executive and legislative independ- 
ence. It had always guarded the honor of the nation in its 
relations to foreign governments, and had faithfully adhered 
to every treaty stipulation, and every obligation of good faith 
and comity. But it was reserved for the Senate to prove it- 
self unequal to this last encounter with the insidious foe of 
our republican institutions, and to exhibit the humiliating 
spectacle, not only of the prostration of its proper dignity, 
but of the sacrifice, by its own hands, of the rights of the 
States committed to its charge, upon the uuiiallowed shrine 
of the Moloch of slavery ! In the Senate, as in the House, 
by adroit management, by pretence and subterfuge, by ex- 
ecutive promises and party denunciation, and, in the end, by 
the same detestable conjunction of slave-holding NVhigs and 



Free-State Democrats, the work of shame and infamy was 
wellnigh accomplished. It was wellnigh accomplished ! 
For a moment, a gleam of hope flitted across our anxious 
brows, as we gazed in amazement at the singular attitude 
of a Democratic slave-holding Senator, who, in such an 
emergency, could pause to consult the Constitution ! For 
a moment, as the fatal decision seemed suspended by a 
single vote, our thanksgivings went up to Heaven for the 
temporary deliverance, mingled with our prayers that a 
sinful nation might yet be spared the retribution which it had 
brought upon itself. But it could not be so. Heaven, in its 
justice, had ordered otherwise ; and having "sown the wind," 
in all our compromises and dalliances with slavery, from the 
formation of the Constitution downward, what should we ex- 
pect but the righteous doom to "reap the whirlwind " ? 

The period of suspense in regard to the action of the 
Senate was but of brief duration. A Senator from Alabama 
had his constitutional scruples, which he declared could not 
be removed, if he were required to vote upon the joint reso- 
lution as it had passed the House ; he could consent to an- 
nexation only by the exercise of the treaty-making power. 
As the treaty-making power could not be exercised but with 
the concurrence of two thirds of the Senators, and as a treaty 
had been rejected, it was foreseen by President Tyler, and 
the friends of annexation in the House, that to acquiesce in 
the only mode of proceeding which Senator Bagby deemed 
constitutional was in effect to abandon the project ; that, in 
other words, to save the Constitution was to lose Texas ! 
The measure could not be carried in the Senate without his 
vote ; and his conscience had forced him to declare that he 
could not vote for it. What a phenomenon, — the Demo- 
cratic party held at bay by the mutinous conscience of one 
of its members ! What an anomaly, — a Democratic slave- 
holder hesitating to violate the Constitution for the purpose 
of extending slavery ! What a dilemma, — the " lone star " 
of President Tyler's glory threatened with an eclipse, — the 
diplomacy of Upshur and Calhoun on the point of proving a 
total failure, — the heroes of San Jacinto and the statesmen 
of Austin in danger of being pent up once more within the 
narrow horizon of Texan valor and ambition, — slave-traders 
and slave-breeders and the holders of land scrip on the 
brink of ruin through their speculations, — and President 
Polk about to be relieved from his indebtedness to his prede- 
cessor for all the prospective success of his administration ! 
To dispose of a case of conscience under such extraordinary 



8 

circumstances, and to avoid the difficulties it involved, — to 
achieve a result which seemed thus impracticable, was of 
course a task which required a resort to unusual expedients ; 
and it becomes us to ponder well the unprecedented method 
of legislation — if legislation it can be called — by which the 
work was done. 

So long as the Senator from Alabama obeyed his con- 
science, the joint resolution, as it came from the House, 
could not be carried in the Senate, nor could it be agreed 
to with any amendment which involved a substitute for the 
treaty-making power. The House, swayed by considera- 
tions of expediency, sought to give validity to the action of a 
bare majority of the two branches of Congress ; the Senate 
stood upon its constitutional rights, as these were admitted 
and maintained by the Senator from Alabama. But the firm- 
ness of the Senator did not prove equal to the exigencies of 
his position. He was disposed to support the Constitution, 
but he could not desert his party. He still boasted of his loy- 
alty to the new President, to whom it was found he was even 
ready to intrust the custody of his conscience. He was wil- 
linof to take the risk of authorizinor a violation of the Consti- 
tution by the act of the President, though by his own act he 
could not be prevailed upon to undertake it. To meet the 
case, therefore, in all its peculiarities, the as.-^ent of the Sena- 
tor was obtained to an amendment of the joint resolution, 
by which the President was authorized to make his election 
between the method of legislative negotiation proposed by the 
House and the exercise of the treaty-making power as claim- 
ed by the Senate ! To show its object, had the modified res- 
olution contained a preamble, it might have declared, that, 
whereas the annexation of Texas must be effected without 
delay, and by any practicable means ; and ivhereas, by the 
refusal of the Senate to ratify the treaty, the constitutional 
power of the government has been exhausted ; and whereas, 
upon the recommendation of the President, the House of 
Representatives has assumed the power beyond the Constitu- 
tion required by the contingency, and by the passage of a 
joint resolution, in its terms equivalent to a treaty, has made 
it necessary only for a bare majority of the Senate to concur 
in enabling the President to carry it into effect ; and whereas 
the concurrence of the Senate is suspended upon the vote of 
a single Senator, who is restrained by conscientious scruples 
from giving his aid to this attempt to divest the Senate of its 
constitutional functions ; and whereas the Senator aforesaid, 
notwithstanding his scruples as aforesaid, in proof of his 



party allegiance, and to avoid as far as he may all political 
and moral responsibility, has been prevailed upon to consent 
that the President may decide to violate or maintain the 
Constitution as circumstances shall require ; therefore re- 
solved, that the President be authorized to effect the annexa- 
tion of Texas in either of the modes, constitutional or uncon- 
stitutional, which have been proposed respectively, though not 
in concurrence, by the Senate and House of Representatives. 

Thus illustrated, the joint resolution, as it finally passed, 
is exhibited in its true character ; in no proper sense, 
scarcely even in its form, an act of legislation, and in sub- 
stance nothing more nor less than a justification in advance, 
nay, a solicitation, of executive usurpation. I say, then, 
let this measure be construed as a precedent, — let the 
power for once thus conferred upon the President be con- 
tinued to him, — let the Senate be thus circumvented in the 
exercise alike of its executive and legislative functions, — I 
say it boldly, that our republican government is resolved into 
a monarchy, that its most important object is defeated, that its 
spirit is extinct, its life is gone. 

Senator Bagby consented to the joint resolution ; but, let 
it be remembered, he did so with a declaration of his con- 
fidence that the President would discard the proposal of the 
House, and would manifest his respect for the rights of the 
Senate. He did so, it was presumed, with the expectation 
that the execution of the resolution would be reserved for 
Mr. Polk, and would not be undertaken by Mr. Tyler. 
When, but a few days afterwards, it was understood, that, 
without a moment's delay, a special messenger had been 
despatched to our Charge, to instruct him to negotiate with 
the Texan government upon the basis of the proposition of 
the House, who does not recollect the outcry, that Mr. Tyler 
had forestalled Mr. Polk, and had violated the good faith 
upon which Senator Bagby had relied ? Unfortunate Sena- 
tor ! Review your devious course, and contemplate its re- 
sult ! If you were honest, confess your error, and, while 
you blush for the weakness through which you were be- 
trayed, dare now to look your betrayer in the face, and 
brand him as such before the country, even though his 
name should be James K. Polk ! Yes ! yes ! it was not 
Mr. Tyler who took undue advantage of the Senator's con- 
fidence in Mr. Polk, but, as is now fully disclosed in the 
correspondence of Mr. Donelson, it was Mr. Polk himself, 
backing Mr. Tyler, who, in defiance of the known opposi- 
tion of the Senate to such a course of proceeding, and 



10 

aware that the vote of Mr. Bagby was not intended to au- 
thorize it, instructed Mr. Donelson to say to the Texan Sec- 
retary of State, that in this way only, and "now or never," 
could annexation be effected, — that with extreme difficulty, 
and under extraordinary circumstances, the President had 
obtained from Congress the questionable authority to nego- 
tiate upon these terms, and that, if there should be a con- 
clusion on the part of Texas to vary the terms or to prefer 
a treaty, or if in any way the opportunity should be afforded 
to the Senate or the people of the United States to act again 
upon the subject, — it was Mr. Polk, faithless to his friend, 
and false to his country, who, through Mr. Donelson, de- 
clared to Texas that an assent to the annexation could never 
be renewed. 

By such perfidy, then, as is exhibited without a gloss in 
the instructions to Mr. Donelson, by the importunity which 
he is directed to use, by the unauthorized pledge which he 
is told to give, that all claims of Texas not stipulated in the 
joint resolution shall be afterwards satisfied, by the promise 
of military assistance to the extent of waging a war with 
Mexico, — by such means, have we lived to see the people 
of Texas induced to consent to become politically united 
with the people of the United States. For the completion 
of such a project, by means alike extraordinary and unwar- 
ranted throughout, we have seen the army and navy of the 
United States withdrawn from almost every station within 
the limits of our own country, or within the range of our 
commerce, and concentrated upon the frontier and coasts, 
or in the immediate vicinity, of Texas. Strange sight as it 
has been, we have seen the militia of some of the States 
ordered into foreign service upon the requisition of our 
army officers, who have thus shown themselves prone to 
imitate their superiors in the exercise of power not con- 
ferred by the Constitution or laws. We have seen, too, 
last of all, that, under the guise of this negotiation with 
Texas, the boundaries of Texas have been settled anew, 
and that a large portion of Mexico, notoriously admitted to 
be and occupied as her territory, is most surreptitiously and 
wrongfully included in the annexation. 

Such, since we met in Faneuil Hall, have been some of 
the more important proceedings preparatory to the annexa- 
tion of Texas, and the final act seems only to await the 
sitting of Congress. How do we regard, and how shall we 
meet it .'* In reference to immediate action, this is the prin- 
cipal question which we should now consider. 



11 

Texas has acceded to the terms proposed by Mr. Donelson, 
and she has been assured by him, in conformity with his in- 
structions, that the faith of the government is pledged to the 
fulfilment of the contract on our part, and that her admission 
to the Union, upon presenting lier constitution, will be " a 
matter of course." On her part, all the proceedings of her 
government were submitted for ratification to a convention 
of delegates of the people ; and even the doings of the 
convention are yet to undergo the popular revision. But 
on our side, we are told, the people have no duty to perform, 
and no right to exercise ; the election of Mr. Polk to the 
presidency was our vote upon the Texas question, and the 
action of the government has been reduced to a simple and 
single act of anomalous legislation. The whole question 
was settled, the door was shut, the voice of the people was 
stifled, the power of the people was crushed, when the 
President was clothed with the power conferred by the joint 
resolution, if that is to be construed as not affording to the 
people any opportunity, any right, through their representa- 
tives, to express their dissent from it. Yes, I repeat it, — 
the joint resolution, with its extraordinary provisions, and 
construed as it has been, made the President in this case a 
monarch ; and he has shown the spirit and wielded the 
power of a monarch, transcending at will its nominal limit- 
ations, and exhausting all the attributes of despotic sover- 
eignty, in preparing for the exigencies of peace or war, as 
circumstances might seem to require. 

But will the people submit to such usurpation ? Are they 
satisfied with a change of government and a change of 
country ? Is it enough that despotism wears the mask of 
democracy, and is the certain and unlimited gain of slavery 
a compensation for the equally certain and unlimited loss of 
liberty } If the Slave-holding States, in the spirit of their 
peculiar institutions, shall acquiesce and triumph in such an 
issue, are the Free States ready to submit and abide by it I 
Are their hearts open, are their arms outstretched, are they 
eager to give the pledge in advance to cherish and defend 
Texas as a sister State, — and are their love of union and their 
love of country such, that principle and duty, consistency 
and honor, all go for nothing, when the opportunity is af- 
forded, by the worst of means, of making their country 
more magnificent, and their patriotism more expansive } 

These, fellow-citizens, are proper questions for our con- 
sideration ; and Massachusetts, it should be presumed, is 
prepared to answer them. Upon this whole subject her 



12 

principles and her policy have been settled in advance. 
From its inception, she has denounced and declared her 
determination to resist the project for the annexation of 
Texas, as, in any form of legislative or executive action, 
beyond the competency of the government, and opposed 
alike to the wishes, the interests, and the rights of the people. 
From her watchtower upon the ramparts of the Constitu- 
tion, she discovered the first movements of this secret con- 
spiracy against liberty and humanity, and gave the alarm to 
the country. Before it was avowed, she recognized its 
design, and, in unappeasable hostility to this design, she 
uttered her protest against it. Once and again, without dis- 
tinction of party, by the joint action of a Whig House of 
Representatives and a Democratic Senate, with the approba- 
tion successively of a Whig and a Democratic governor, 
she has formally placed this protest upon the records of 
every department of her government, and has caused it to 
be deposited in the archives at Washington. Coupled with 
this protest is the solemn pledge that she will not submit to 
a violation of the Constitution by the exercise of such un- 
delegated power as must be assumed to give effect to the 
annexation of Texas, and that she will regard the annexa- 
tion, whatever may be its form, and under any circumstances, 
as not binding upon her. 

Such, before the country, and before the world, such as 
it will appear upon the page of history, was the position of 
Massachusetts, which she saw fit to assume with a full and 
clear view of all the principles and consequences involved 
in it. It was no question of expediency which she under- 
took to decide ; but, in all its height, and depth, and length, 
and breadth, a question of principle. She did not ask herself 
what she could do to maintain tlie principle which she as- 
serted ; — to assert the principle involved the duty of main- 
taining it, and she trusted in her ability to perforin her duty. 
Let none now suppose that it was then too soon to deter- 
mine her course ; it was the very moment for calm, serious, 
and unprejudiced deliberation. It was the only moment 
when the question could be considered on its merits alone ; 
and if vigilance is the security of liberty, and promptness of 
action the proof of vigilance, to have seen the danger that 
was then visible, and to have done nothing to avert it, would 
have been — unworthy of Massachusetts. 

Shall we retreat from our first position ? Has a change of 
circumstances effected a change of principles, or a change 
of our purpose to adhere to them .'' Has it become a ques- 



13 

tion of expediency whether we shall act upon principle ? 
In our present view ot" consequences, do we apprehend any 
worse loss than the loss of character, and have we become 
indifferent to that ? These questions, seek to disguise and 
avoid them as we may, are of such practical importance and 
urgency, that we cannot escape from the duty of answering 
them to our consciences, to the country, to the world, and to 
Heaven. Nay, our very silence must answer them, for it 
will be the confession of our shame. 

No citizen of Massachusetts as, yet pleads guilty of igno- 
rance or of a change of opinion upon the subject. Some, 
indeed, are anxious to change the form of the question, to 
go off upon collateral issues, to shun the point where con- 
science meets them. But not even in the recent Democratic 
convention, with all the ingenuity which was exercised to 
compound a series of resolutions upon the Texas question 
in such proportions of sophistry, subterfuge, and evasion, 
that they might not injure the party at home, and yet recom- 
mend its office-seekers to favor at Washington, could the 
attempt succeed to obtain a retraction from the Democrats 
of their agency in the legislative proceedings. The propo- 
sal was made with consummate artfulness, and, of course, in 
a Van Burenized form, — but the men, whose recorded votes, 
so tormentingly reproduced in the Whig newspapers, stared 
them in the lace, could not quite come up, in open day, and 
in plain language, to the requirement of the administration. 
Indirectly, in the dark, allow them to proceed by a circuit- 
ous course from a new starting-point, — devise for them 
some disguise of JefTersonian policy, patriotic love of union, 
enmity to Great Britain, vindication of the national honor, 
— put it to them as a settled question, — instigate them to 
action by the hate-stirring outcry, that they were still oppos- 
ing the old Federalists, — you might find many of them ready 
enough by their conduct to forswear their principles, and. 
Democrats as they call themselves, to rally and vote for 
Texas and slavery, and against liberty and the Constitution, 
so long, at least, as their paltry services as partisans should 
be solicited and paid for. But still, as I have said, it was 
too much to expect of the leaders and their tools, that in 
express terms they should abjure their participation in the 
legislative proceedings of Massachusetts against the annex- 
ation of Texas. It was too much to expect, even of them, 
that they should be ready to act unblushingly and bare- 
facedly in the manner and for the object proposed. Apart, 
too, from a sense of personal shame, they calculated the 
2 



14 

effect of such open and sudden action upon the honest por- 
tion of their party. It would cost them, they said, the loss 
of many thousand votes, and would sink the cause of De- 
mocracy in irretrievable ruin and lasting disgrace. Let 
this fact, then, that the retracting resolutions miscarried in 
the Democratic convention, be accredited as the evidence 
that the legislature truly interpreted the public sentiment, 
and that the public sentiment remains unchanged. If Polk 
Democrats, wliile the distribution of offices in Massachusetts 
is not completed, shrink from a recantation, who else is 
there among the citizens of Massachusetts that will stoop to 
do the deed in their stead ? 

Our principles, then, are unchanged. What was declared 
and recorded in 1838, and at the three last sessions of the 
legislature, is still the opinion and purpose of Massachusetts. 
We cannot submit to a violation of the Constitution. We 
will not consent to the extension of slavery. The Union as 
it is, except that there is not freedom enough in it, suffices 
for our patriotism ; and we can never look beyond its limits 
with any other sentiment than that where there dwells not 
liberty, there shall never be our country. 

It is evident, fellow-citizens, that no inconsiderable work 
must be done to sustain the position of Massachusetts. But 
what can we do ? This is the question, which many are 
heard to ask with a marked emphasis, as if they supposed 
that none could undertake to answer it. Let me prepare to 
answer it by admonishing those who ask it, that, if as yet we 
can do nothing for our cause, we can at least abstain from 
doing any thing against it. We can avoid doing any thing 
that will tend to discourage each other's hearts and weaken 
each other's hands. We can avoid the manifestation of any 
lukewarmness or indifference, any want of fidelity, any cov- 
ert retraction of the Massachusetts pledge. We can avoid 
thinking and feeling, or speaking and acting, otherwise than 
as those who are in earnest, and of whom it may be seen by 
all around them that their course is determined and that their 
purpose is unalterable. We can avoid giving to our cause 
by our own acts the aspect of " a foregone conclusion " and 
" a forlorn hope." We can abstain, at least, from abandon- 
ing it in advance, and from giving to its opponents the im- 
pression that we are prepared to abandon it, and that, before 
the event can warrant us in congratulating them uj)on their 
success, we are ready and eager to anticipate the result by 
giving them assurance of the conciliatory purpose with which 
we shall await it. 



15 

Thus much, at least, we can refrain from doing ; and still 
we may not be inactive. We cannot be inactive. So far 
from it, if the true spirit of the cause has taken possession of 
our hearts, we shall tind ourselves able and disposed every 
day to perform some active service that will promote it. 
EvcKy effort to ditfuse information, still so much needed, — 
every word of expostulation or encouragement uttered in the 
ear of an unconcerned or irresolute neighbour, — every aban- 
donment of prejudice and every sacrifice of unworthy feeling 
which we find to be still required of ourselves, — every mani- 
festation of our sentiments and the exertion of our influence 
upon proper occasions, is so much which may be done by 
every individual amongst us. Acting together, too, as indi- 
viduals merged in masses, in the mighty combinations which 
have been formed under the impulse of our religious and 
political sympathies, we have it in our power to give or to 
refuse, and we are so situated that we must decide to give or 
to refuse, the vast weight of our combined influence in the 
church and state to this truly Christian and republican un- 
dertaking. 

In this connection, I am happy to notice the indications, 
which many felt that we had too long waited for, of a willing- 
ness on the part of the religious denominations to take up 
this cause as one properly claiming their prayers and labors 
in its behalf. In the divisions which have recently rent in 
twain the churches, from whose closely guarded fellowship 
slaveholders, as such, had not been excluded, — in the dis- 
cussions of the ecclesiastical conventions, in which the pow- 
er of truth, overcoming obstacles repeatedly interposed, has 
at length caused its voice to be heard, — in the protest and 
other formal declarations of the clergy, which show so many 
of them prepared to assume their share of responsibility, 
there is proof of progress and cause of encouragement 
enough, of themselves, to assure our faith and kindle our 
hopel'and to stimulate us all to renewed and increased ac- 
tivity. 

But it is through our political action, that the work which 
we now have to do — the duty of this day and hour — must 
necessarily be performed. It is of course to be expected, that, 
at the commencement of the next session of Congress, upon 
the recommendation of the President, bills will be introduced 
for the annexation of Texas to the country, and for her ad- 
mission as a State into the Union. 1 have said already that 
without doubt this will be proposed and attempted as a mat- 
ter of course, and that the good faith of the government, as 



16 

pledged in the joint resolution, will be alleged to require the 
prompt and uncomplaining adoption of both these measures. 
What we have to do, therefore, is here and everywhere to 
resist such a construction of the joint resolution, and such 
an inference from it. We, indeed, go further, and deny the 
validity of the joint resolution, and reject it altogether as un- 
constitutional and void. But, odious as it is, the joint reso- 
lution does not preclude deliberation and the free action of 
Congress upon the measures resulting from it, but distinctly 
refers to them as involving the final action in the case, and 
leaves this action to be as free and uncontrolled as in any 
other case of legislation whatever. 

A vast responsibility, then, remains with the representa- 
tives of the people ; and the people have their usual right — 
the right which is the foundation of all others in a democratic 
government — to form and express their opinions for the in- 
struction of their representatives. We have a right, especial- 
ly, to claim of our representatives that the rights of the States 
and the people, palpably violated by the joint resolution, shall 
be respected and recognized anew ; and, under the circum- 
stances, it clearly becomes us to anticipate the meeting of 
Congress by the preparation of a solemn Protest, which 
shall authoritatively forbid the violation of the Constitution, 
and in the name of a free people shall remonstrate against 
all further proceedings for the extension of slavery. 

Surely in Massachusetts, if nowhere else, the preparation 
and presentation of such a protest is a step which must be 
taken to sustain the dignity of her past course, and to place 
her in a suitable attitude for future action. It will be, at 
least, the proper completion of the record of her proceedings 
on the subject ; and she is fortunately in a situation to strike 
this last blow for the Constitution and Liberty by the hands 
of champions equal to the occasion and worthy of herself 
As if it were to meet this crisis, the " Defender of the Con- 
stitution " is again the representative of Massachusetts in 
the Senate ; and upon the floor of the House of Represent- 
atives — if Heaven shall spare his life and vigor — there 
will once more stand tbrth in her behalf the " brave old 
man" who has borne the brunt of every battle against Tex- 
as and slavery, and is ready to spend his last breath in utter- 
ing his last warning against the surrender or the overthrow 
of the rights of tVeemen. Let the protest of Massachusetts, 
declaring her principles and avowing her determination to 
maintain them, — attested by the signatures of all her ci( izens 
wiio, for such a purpose, are not afraid to proclaim themselves 



17 

such, — be placed in the hands of Daniet, Webster and 
John Quincy Adams ; and let them, as the spirit of the cause 
shall move them, discharge their duty in presenting it. In 
such a cause, at such a time, they cannot speak in vain. 
They may not change the course of Congress ; the slavehold- 
er and the Northern Democrat may not heed them for the 
moment ; but they will not speak in vain to the understand- 
ings and the consciences of a great mass of enlightened and 
honest citizens throughout the country ; they will not speak 
in vain to or for their own constituents. No ; they will ut- 
ter the voice of Massachusetts in tones that shall be echoed 
and reechoed in the ears of every freeman and every slave- 
holder from Maine to Texas ; and as they listen to it, free- 
man and slaveholder alike will be reminded of what Massa- 
chusetts was in the times of the Revolution, and neither of 
them will conclude that she can now speak in vain. 

I say, then, fellow-citizens, that it will be something for 
present action to take the necessary steps for preparing 
and presenting the protest of Massachusetts, and that it is 
necessary thus to complete our preliminary proceedings in 
opposition to the annexation of Texas. I see, however, as 
we all do, that there is but little to encourage the hope that 
the annexation can be defeated ; and I am prepared, as I 
trust we all are, in a spirit of anxious patriotism, to contem- 
plate the fearful issue which that event must place before us, 

Texas annexed, — what has become of the Constitution ? what 
shall be the cement of the Union ? in what country, and under 
what government, shall we lire ? This is a question so 
broad, so deep, so vital, that we cannot consider it too seri- 
ously ; and, answer it as we will, any answer will require 
action. Answer it as we will, our present position is such 
that we must retreat or advance from it ; we must abandon 
our principles, or carry them into effect. 

Texas annexed, — ivhat has become of the Constitution 1 
Massachusettsanswersofcour.se, — she has given her an- 
swer in advance, — the Constitution has been violated and 
overthrown. The Constitution, as she has always understood 
it, as is plain to all who can read it, was a compact be- 
tween certain States, providing for the establishment of a 
general government for certain purposes which are express- 
ly prescribed, and stipulating that all rights not granted to 
the general government are reserved to the States and the 
people respectively. By ratifying the Constitution the origi- 
nal States became united in a political partnership, and as 
voluntary partners thev have shared all the privileges and 
2* 



18 

burdens, all the responsibilities and duties, of snch a connec- 
tion. The Constitution contains no provision for extending 
the partnership, except so far as to authorize the formation 
of new States witliin the limits of the original States or of the 
territory belonging to then) collectively ; and it clearly was 
not contemplated or desired that the question of enlarging 
the common country should be considered or decided in any 
other manner than as a question to be submitted, like that 
upon the adoption of the Constituiion, to the people of all 
the States. The attempt, therefore, on the part of the gen- 
eral government, in any of its branches, to enlarge the coun- 
try, is regarded by Massachusetts as an invasion of the re- 
served rights of the States and the people, and thus a viola- 
tion of the Constitution. Massachusetts occupies this 
ground, and she maintains it in disregard of the treaties for 
the acquisition of Louisiana and Florida. She maintained it 
with Mr. Jefferson in opposing the Louisiana treaty ; and, 
waiving the consideration of the admitted peculiarities in both 
cases, she insists that they derived their validity from a sub- 
sequent and general acquiescence in them. Granting, how- 
ever, all that can be claimed from the construction of these 
treaties as precedents, Massachusetts sees, that, if, by any 
act of the government under the Constitution, a foreign na- 
tion may be annexed to the country, it can only be through 
the exercise of the treaty-making power ; and, stopping 
here, she unites with all who hesitate to adopt her broader 
conclusion, in denouncing the attempt to make Texas one of 
the United States, — not by a treaty, with the advice and con- 
sent of two thirds of the Senate, but, after the rejection of a 
treaty, by a semi-legislative and semi-executive negotiation, 
not fairly authorized by the regular vote of a bare majority 
of the two Houses, — as a proceeding which, in its object, and 
by virtue of the means included in it, annuls the Constitu- 
tion. If a right reserved by the States and people is, with- 
out their consent, to be assumed by the general govern- 
ment, — or if the treaty-making power, so carefully guard- 
ed in consideration of tlic rights of the States, is to be tram- 
pled upon and set at naught in a question directly involving 
the vital rights of the States, — what remains in the Consti- 
tution which the States can or ought to be content with .'' and 
what can make it valid for any other good purpose in a 
time of need, if, in a case like this, it cannot be maintained ? 
I say, then, deliberately, that, when Texas shall have been 
annexed in the mode which is proposed, the Constitution, for 
many purposes at least, will have been virtually abrogated ; 



19 

that, with such a precedent, tliere will be practically no long- 
er any reserved rights of the States or people ; and that the 
general government, acting only through the President and 
a bare nmjority of the two Houses of Congress, — acting, in 
effect, through the President alone, — will be absolute and 
supreme. 

'J'exas annexed, and the Constitution thus violated, — what 
shall be the cement of the Union? The Union, — well may 
we stand aghast in dread of its dissolution ! When we recol- 
lect the purpose of the framersof the Constitution, — when we 
call to mind the valedictory counsels of Washington, — when 
we contemplate the progress, and, in many of its aspects, 
the present prosperity, of the country, — when we see in its 
physical features, in its varied and combined resources, what 
God fitted the country to become, — when we remember how 
much our fathers endured and sacrificed to serve and save 
and unite the country, — and when we reflect what we our- 
selves, with all the advantages of our times, may be enabled 
to do for it, the thought is appalling, that at this moment the 
sword is perhaps suspended by a single hair, which, at one 
stroke, may dissever the Union ! Yet so it may be, if the 
fatal blow now aimed at the Constitution shall not be arrest- 
ed ; — nay, so it must be, if the spirit of mutual confidence 
and of attachment to a common object, which is the life of 
union, shall be extinguished. If, by the annexation of Texas, 
the Free States are to be made to feel that their rights have 
been disregarded, and that the sole object of annexation is to 
make the general governnjent the instrument of the Slave- 
holding States for the perpetuation of slavery, by what tie of 
feeling or interest, for what valuable common object, for what 
truly national purpose, can it be supposed that the Union is 
to be preserved ? How can a slave-holding policy be sus- 
tained or tolerated by Free States .'' and how long can Free 
States consent to be deprived of the power of legislating for 
their own welfare ? To bring the case home to Massachu- 
setts, — what can she see in union with Texas for the sake of 
slavery, which can reconcile her to the connection ? Mas- 
sachusetts and Texas, — forced together as they will be, — 
all the peculiarities of their character and condition tending 
only to mutual repulsion, — how can they become, in any 
proper view of the relation, for any purpose of cordial or 
useful union, sister States ^ Much, then, as union is to be 
valued while it exists, how plain is it, that, unless it can be 
maintained in perfect good faith, upon a practical basis of 
equal rights and common interests, it must cease to exist ! 



20 

At the time of the formation of the Constitution, Mr. Madison 
entertained and avowed the apprehension that the chief dan- 
ger to the Union would arise, not, as some supposed, from 
the disparity in political power between the large and small 
States, but from the essential difference in character and in 
interests between the Free and Slave-holding States. With 
all the manifestations of our national growth and greatness, 
the experience of the country has shown that the union of 
the States has been always imperfect; that there has been a 
bitter ingredient in the cup, — a canker at the root of our 
prosperity; and, in confirmation of the prophetic apprehen- 
sion of Air. INIadison, it is easy to see, that, from first to last, 
the element in our institutions so adverse to union has been 
slavery. In peace or war, upon almost every question which 
has produced a serious division of opinion and feeling, this 
result may be traced to a renewed disagreement between the 
Free and Slave-holding States. Seldom with respect to our 
foreign affairs, and still more seldom in regard to the domes- 
tic policy of the government, have they acted together with 
any cordiality. In the discussion of questions affecting their 
relative interests, the point with the North has necessarily 
been, what will make free labor more productive, and with 
the South, what will make slave labor more secure; and, by 
adhering to these points, the two sections of the country 
have only proved, over and over again, that they cannot oc- 
cupy common ground, that the coexistence of freedom and 
slavery does not produce a coalition of interest, or sentiment, 
or feeling, but that in all these respects they must gradually 
become more and more alienated from each other, until their 
differences shall be merged in a desperate struggle for pow- 
er. Of such a struggle the annexation of Texas is the an- 
ticipated result; a result, of course, which must give the vic- 
tory to the South, and subject the North to all the conse- 
quences of an inglorious and injurious defeat. In these new 
relations of victors and vanquished, with the Constitution 
trampled down between them, how can the Free and Slave- 
holding States be expected to approach each other in a spirit 
of union.'' What must be the prospect before them, if they 
shall attempt to remain together, but that of increasing ani- 
mosity, constant discord, and of a certain and not far distant 
rupture? How can union be practicable, or even desirable, 
under such unpropitious circumstances? 

Still, as long as the Union, such as it may be, can last, 
what, U'illi Texas annexed, irill be the connlry in u-hicli we shall 
live, and, with the Conslilulion sacrificed to slavery, under 



21 

irhal 2:overnment shall we fnd oursdvcs ? Imaoine the map of 
the United States as it vvill then appear to ail who insj)ect 
it, — to the schoolboy studyino: his atlas, or the traveller 
tracing out his route. Let the Slave States be exhibited in 
the color which represents their peculiar population, and 
what a black spot will overspread the larger portion of the 
broad surface ! Trace upon it as you may the bold outlines 
of natural grandeur, how will they be obscured by the sable 
drapery which covers or overshadows them all ! Descry 
along its edges the light-colored space included whhin the 
contracted boundaries of the old Free States, — Massachu- 
setts scarcely discernible as a point upon the bay within the 
capes, — the whole of New England dwindled into compara- 
tive insignificance, — the Middle States far distant from the 
centre, and just skirting a portion of the circumference, — 
see also the new Free States lying along the line which marks 
the fatal compromise of 1820, — and learn, as you may thus 
read the lesson literally " in black and white," the sad ef- 
fect of the increase of the country in the disproportionate ex- 
tension of free and slave-holding territory. Yes, see the 
country, stretching, as it does already in its breadth, from 
ocean to ocean, with scarcely any fixed boundary where 
there is land beyond it, — the Indian, French, Spanish, Mex- 
ican, and British titles successively extinguished in its insa- 
tiable lust of territory, and yet in the magnificence of its 
growth exhibiting to the view of the world no other emblem 
of its condition and destiny than the gloomy and lengthen- 
ing pall with which the map is shrouded ! Alas, that it 
must be so ! The new world, discovered by Columbus, in 
its virgin freshness, despoiled of its charms by the most loath- 
some corruption, — the Garden of the West, with its fertility 
proving a curse, as the allurement and support of slave la- 
bor, — and the " Laud of the Free, "the country of Washing- 
ton, known and described as the principal slave-holding and 
slave-breeding region of the earth ! 

In such a country, if it can be kept together under slave- 
holding control, U'liat of necessiti/ must be The nature and fffed 
of its govtrnmenl ? Call it by what name you will, — when, 
under the circumstances, there can be no alternative between 
anarchy and despotism, — when it has become the main object 
of the government to establish the power of oppressors over 
the oppressed, — when every influence of freedom, direct or 
remote, can only prove adverse to the design of the govern- 
ment, and must be guarded against accordingly, — what ves- 
tige can remain of tlie republic of which we have fancied 



22 

ourselves citizens, what virtue will there be in the forms to 
which we have been accustomed, and what other choice can 
the people of the Free States have, but to identify thc^nselves 
with slavery, or to extricate themselves from it ? 

I have indulged in gloomy and disheartening apprehen- 
sions ; and I have reached a conclusion from which 1 would 
instantly recede, were it not that my irrepressible convictions 
compel me to adhere to it, and a strong sense of duty ad- 
monishes me to avow it. I can see no honor, no peace, no 
safety for the I'ree States in a continued union with the Slave- 
holding States, upon the conditions involved in the annexa- 
tion of Texas, namely, — the overthrow of the Constitution, the 
extension and perpetuation of slavery, and the transformation 
of the federal government in all its operations and influ- 
ences into a scarcely disguised instrument of the slave power. 
That these conditions will be realized others may not permit 
themselves to believe ; and, blinded by their wishes and 
their hopes, they may remain in ignorance of the danger, 
which can never be warded off or prepared for, unless it is 
foreseen. But for myself, unwilling and unable to avoid the 
responsibilities of this occasion, I choose to derive what in- 
struction 1 may from past and passing events, and to extend 
my view to the inevitable future ; and I can learn nothing 
which inspires the slightest confidence, I can see nowhere 
any ground of hope, that, loiih the anntxation of Texas, in the 
mode and for the object proposed, there can be an escape from 
the consequences which I have portrayed. That you may 
realize, however, that despair should be only conditional, let 
me add that all these consequences may be prevented, that 
the danger which is so imminent may be averted, that the 
extension of slavery may be arrested, that the Constitution 
may be kept inviolate, that the Union may be preserved, that 
the country can yet be saved, if the people of the Free States 
shall not prove themselves too unconcerned or too irresolute, 
too worldly-minded or too abstractly religious, too inditlerent 
to political duty or too much of partisans, — too much of 
Democrats, or even too much of Whigs, — to be willing to 
unite in a general effort to make the state of public opinion 
in the Free States such that at least one hundred and thirteen 
out of one hundred and thirty-five of their Representatives 
in Congress shall be inspired with the moral courage, or 
shall be made to yield t(» a moral compulsion, to give their 
votes against the annexation of Texas. 

I am aware, that, upon the subject of slavery, in its con- 
nection v.'ith the Texas question, and in many of its relations, 



23 

I differ in opinion from some, whose judgment I am apt to 
respect, and whose motives 1 can justly a|)preciate. Oppo- 
sition to slavery in Massachusetts they pronounce to be an 
abstraction; and they admonish us Tor the thousandth time 
that we have nothing to do with it. 

The slaves, it is said, are not upon our soil, — all are free 
and equal here. The evils of slavery are in other States, — 
we are not affected by them, and are not responsible for 
them. We have all the blessings of freedom, and our free 
labor is only the more productive, since slaves have neither 
the intelligence nor skill to supply many of the wants of their 
masters, whose resort must be to our manufactories and 
workshops. Even the annexation of Texas, it is intimat- 
ed, in its practical results, will only extend and strength- 
en the alliance between the American growers and manu- 
facturers of cotton, and will secure to us, rather than to our 
European rivals, the monopoly of the markets which the 
opening of that fertile and spacious country must afford. 
As to slavery, — they say further, — an evil as it is, its con- 
tinuance and extension depend not so much upon political or 
moral causes and influences, as upon the laws of trade and 
the value of labor ; and, for our comfort, we are assured that 
upon economical principles it must gradually die out; that 
the grain-growing slave-holders, unable any longer to sustain 
a competition with free labor, must at once change their op- 
eratives; and that, simultaneously, it maybe, with the annex- 
ation of Texas, we shall behold an exodus of the entire 
slave population from Virginia, Maryland, and Kentucky, at 
least, and shall continue to see slavery gradually receding 
elsewhere, until it disappears. 

Such, as well as I can comprehend it, is the theory of the 
anti-abstractionists; and we, who disagree with them, are 
appealed to, with an air of confidence, to refute it. The 
task, perhaps, is not so difficult as is supposed. 

I undertake to say, then, in the first place, that in Massa- 
chusetts, with all her freedom and prosperity, we have been 
and are compelled to see and feel enough of the evils of 
slavery, as it exists in other States, in its political, moral, and 
social inffuences, to make it of importance to us, in the most 
practical sense of the term, — to make it our duty, upon re- 
publican and Christian principles, — to seek its abolition. 

Politically considered, slavery must be traced back to the 
formation of the Federal Constitution. By recurrino- to the 
transactions of that period we shall readily ascertain, that, 
not then content to withdraw itself from notice as a municipal 



24 

institution, sufficiently sheltered within the constitutions of 
the States, it presented the first claim to the protection of 
the general government, and, by the guaranties which it 
exacted, became enabled to draw its life-blood from the vitals 
of the Union. By the political power secured to it as a 
basis of representation, by the obligation which is imposed 
upon every State government, and the citizens of every State, 
to recognize and enforce its claims, slavery stands forth in 
the Federal Constitution, and presents itself to the view of 
every observer of our institutions as a great national con- 
cern, and it is seen and felt that every State is thus made, 
in a measure, responsible for maintaining or submitting to it. 
That all was intended by the framers of the Constitution 
which is now claimed to have been their intention, — that 
they foresaw all that slavery would become, and meant that 
it should be so, — that they regarded slavery as, equally with 
liberty, a constituent and conservative element of a repub- 
lican government, I do not believe. The evidence is extant 
in the published journals and debates, that it was their pur- 
pose, and that they almost accomplished it (alas ! that Mas- 
sachusetts should not have concurred with Virginia in per- 
severing to accomplish it), to prohibit, with the adoption of 
the Constitution, the importation of slaves, — that they re- 
garded slavery as the worst relic of colonial subjection to a 
monarchy, and had no other idea than that a republican 
government in its legitimate operation must exterminate it, — 
and that they were actually looking forward to its gradual 
abolition. Still, while I am reluctant to receive the Consti- 
tution from their hands as a bequest of slavery to their pos- 
terity, I am compelled to admit, that, in the light of the sub- 
sequent history of the country, I now see clearly, that, in its 
legislative and judicial interpretation, in the claims which 
have arisen under it, in the measures in which its authority 
has been exercised, the Federal Constitution has practically 
become the palladium of slavery, — that, by virtue of its 
provisions, though it is not named in one of them, slavery 
has been accredited as an institution, and has been main- 
tained as such on the basis of a compact binding upon all 
the States, — and that the " compromises of (lie Conslitution," 
in the popular sense of that Shibboleth of the anti-abstrac- 
tionists, compreliend the power to enforce the most odious 
pretensions of slavery, and especially to make the Free States 
the instruments of guarding it against the inlluences of free- 
dom, even to the extent of requiring of their citizens, in op- 
position to their moral and religious principles, to act as a 



25 

police for the arrest of fugitives, and to expose their lives in 
military service in resisting the retributive consequences of 
insurrection. 

Directly, then, in a manner and degree which should make 
us constantly realize our responsibility, are we of the Free 
States required to exert our political influence in support of 
slavery. While the Federal Constitution lasts, it will 
be the Free States, as much as the Slave, who will sus- 
tain a relation to slavery indispensable to its security and 
continuance. To the slave panting for his liberty, the at- 
tempt is accompanied with but little risk, in most cases, to 
escape from his master in a Slave State ; he begins to real- 
ize his danger, and to encounter an insuperable obstacle, 
w^hen he feels the power of the federal government, upon 
reaching the confines of a Free State. If he can but touch 
the soil which the monarchy of Great Britain has not yet 
surrendered to the republic of America, that moment he is 
free ; but in one of our Free States, in Massachusetts, he 
must still be recognized as a slave, and it is our only duty, 
under the Federal Constitution, to rebind his chains, and to 
become instrumental in inflicting all the pangs and hardships 
which await his return to bondage. It is true that public 
opinion, as it shall become enlightened, humanized, and 
Christianized, will render too odious and disgraceful the act 
of arresting fugitives for any to be willing to undertake it ; 
but public opinion will then have outgrown the Constitution, 
and will be in conflict with it ; and therefore, to meet such 
an exigency as soon as it arises, the Constitution must be so 
far amended or repudiated. While it lasts, and so long as 
we shall support it, slavery can be no abstraction to us, and, 
in view of our liabilities in cases both of escape and insur- 
rection, we must have much to do in sustaining it, — much 
that should make us ashamed of our position as it is now 
regarded by the civilized world, and enough to cause us to 
tremble as we anticipate our share of the righteous judg- 
ments of God. 

The provision of the Constitution which secures to the 
owmers of slaves a representation in Congress, founded upon 
what is essentially a property basis, is in its nature so great 
a wrong, and has proved in its operation so great an injury 
to the people of the Free States, that it is their unquestionable 
right and duty to seek to apply the only remedy which the 
case admits. This the legislature of Massachusetts has 
attempted, by proposing an amendment of the Constitution, 
which will make the right of representation uniform and 



26 

equal throughout all the States, by securing to the slave the 
enjoyment of the right as soon as he can possess it for him- 
self, but not conferring upon his master, in consideration of 
his being a slave-holder, an extension of the electoral privi- 
lege far beyond what is or should be allowed to any property- 
holder in a Free State. That such an amendment should have 
been proposed by the concurrence of all parties in two suc- 
cessive legislatures is a fact which shows somewhat conclu- 
sively that all amongst us have felt this encroachment up- 
on our political rights ; and it is scarcely to be presumed 
that the reception of the amendment in Congress, and the 
action upon it in the Slave States, will have abated the con- 
viction, that our duty to ourselves requires of us to be pre- 
pared to meet the conflict which slavery in so many directions 
is forcing upon us. 

That slavery is no abstraction, and that the Free States 
have something to do with it, may be shown, perhaps, still 
more clearly by passing from the consideration of the spe- 
cific provisions of the Constitution to a brief review of the 
policy and operation of the government, as it has been for a 
long time administered. I have stated my impression that 
the framers of the Constitution could have scarcely designed 
or anticipated any thing more than the temporary continu- 
ance of slavery in a few of the original States, and its grad- 
ual abolition. If so, how remarkably, how wofully, have 
their anticipations been disappointed, and their purposes 
defeated ! So far from being limited to a few of the original 
States, and expiring there, it is the lamentable tact of our 
national history, that, from the adoption of tlie Constitution, 
slavery has made a constant and rapid progress, spreading 
and increasing in many of the old States, growing with the 
growth of the States immediately descended from them, and 
extending itself over nearly the whole of the foreign territory 
which has been acquired for the purpose of forming new 
States. It is also a fact with which we are especially con- 
cerned, that, with the extension of slavery, its political power 
has been gradually augmented, until since 1820, when the 
Missouri compromise was engrafted upon the Constitution, 
it has become, as it were, stipulated and agreed that the 
number of Free States shall never exceed the number of Slave 
States, — that the President or Vice-President for the time 
being shall always be a slave-holder, — that at least one half 
of the members of the Cabinet shall be taken tVom the Slave 
States, — that in all subordinate appointments the claims of 
the Slave States shall be allowed in a ratio far exceeding 



27 

their undue share of representation, — that opponents of 
slavery shall not be deemed eligible to any national offices, — 
and that, in whatever manner the authority of the government 
can be exerted to uphold slavery, it shall not be withheld. 

Now, in view of this established policy of the government, 
who amongst us can fail to perceive that the Free States, 
with their vastly greater population, and their greater re- 
sources in all respects, in submitting to be placed upon a 
political equality with the Slave States, and in according to 
slavery a permanent and controlling influence in the admin- 
istration of the government, have sacrificed alike their dig- 
nity, their principles, their interests, and their rights ? And 
who is there amongst us, capable of estimating the magnitude 
of such a sacrifice, and unprepared to submit passively to 
still greater exactions, — who is there, now that slavery claims 
not only an equality, but, through the annexation of Texas, 
a preponderance of political power, that does not perceive, 
that, if there be a question of vital interest, of appalling re- 
ality, to him and his fellow-citizens of the Free States, it must 
be the absorbing question of slavery, especially in the form 
in which it is now presented, and in reference to the issue 
which must now be decided ? 

The political influence of slavery, in the relation it estab- 
lishes between the Free and Slave States, deserves to be con- 
sidered in another aspect. The axiom is too trite to be 
sufficiently regarded, but its truth is all-important, that a 
republic can have no safe foundation except in the character 
of its citizens ; and that, to make our government what it 
was designed to be, — to make it indeed a glory and a bless- 
ing to the country, — every citizen must be a republican, — 
in his sentiments, his tastes, his habits, and in all his person- 
al and social relations. It was a natural consequence of the 
emigration of our forefathers from Great Britain, and an un- 
avoidable incident of colonial subjection to the mother coun- 
try, that the customs and manners, which had grown up 
under a monarchy in an aristocratic state of society, should 
be transplanted here ; and it was too much to be accom- 
plished at once, in introducing a change of government, to 
introduce also a corresponding change in the private con- 
dition of the people. In the Free States, however, under 
the influences peculiar to our institutions, from the effect of 
universal education, from the necessity of universal industry, 
and from the practical enjoyment of equal rights, there has 
been a gradual approximation to the contemplated and in- 
tended result ; so that it is now seen and felt by all, that, if 



28 

society has not yet been organized in entire conformity to 
the spirit of a popular government, the work of reformation is 
in progress, and will surely, if but slowly, be accomplished. 
But, in the Slave States, how opposite has been the tenden- 
cy of all the causes which are in operation, and how differ- 
ent is the result which may now be witnessed ! What do we 
see there, but a population composed principally of masters 
and slaves, growing up together in the mutually degrading 
habits, and under the mutually corrupting influences, of that 
unnatural relation ? What do we see there, but masters and 
slaves, — and how shall we utter the whole truth which a clear 
view of the relation must reveal to us, without declaring, 
that in the master, as little as in the slave, are we enabled 
to recognize the distinctive lineaments, the proper character, 
the true spirit, of the republican citizen ? Not to denomi- 
nate every slave-holder (in the words of George Mason) "a 
petty tyrant," how can we fail to perceive, that, from his 
cradle to his grave, all the circumstances by which he is 
surrounded must tend to make him a different man, and of 
course a different citizen, from what he would be, had he 
lived to regard all about him as equally free with himself, 
and had he been compelled, in the becoming temper of 
mutual dependence, to perform his share of labor for the 
common weal ? How can we fail to perceive, that, as a 
necessary effect of slavery, the master, as well as the slave, 
must gradually degenerate, — that, of course, all intellectual 
and moral influences must become less and less available to 
the improvement of the condition of both of them, — and that 
the consequent political deterioration of the Slave-holding 
States will in the end be such, that a republican government 
can be no longer satisfactory or suitable to them, that they 
will be unable to sustain its responsibilities, and will thus 
prove themselves unworthy of its privileges ? 

Amidst this conflict of opposing tendencies, how shall it 
be said or thought that the P'ree States can remain indifferent, 
as though they had no interest in the result, when they must 
see all the while, that, do what they may to improve the 
condition of the country and to elevate the character of the 
government, the country as a whole can never become a 
republic, so long as slavery in one part of it acts as a counter- 
poise to liberty in the other, and slavery is clothed with an 
undue share of political power tor the purpose of guarding 
itself against the legitimate effects of liberty ? Upon a lit- 
tle reflection, nothing can be plainer than that it is almost 
the question of moral life or death to the Free States, whether 



29 

they shall remain indifferent, or cease to be so, to the neces- 
sary condition of a quiet alliance with the Slave States, 
namely, virtual submission. Nothing can be plainer, if the 
present state of things tends only to submission, than that 
William Pinkney uttered a pregnant truth, when he de- 
clared, at the time of ratifying the Constitution, that, if Slav- 
ery should survive fifty years, one of its effects would be 
traced in "the decay of the spirit of liberty in the Free 
States ! " 

Politically considered, therefore, in reference to the pro- 
visions of the Constitution, the administration of the govern- 
ment, and the popular character, I think I must have shown 
that slavery presents some claim to the consideration of the 
people of the Free States, so far as they regard their rights 
or their interests, and that it imposes on them duties which 
they cannot neglect with impunity. 

I shall take the time to say only a word of its social and 
moral influences. In these respects slavery has been again 
and again described by those most familiar with it ; and 
had I the disposition to draw the gloomiest picture of hu- 
man der^radation, corruption, and infamy which the imagina- 
tion can sketch, I should only select the facts and borrow 
the images with which slave-holders have exhibited and 
illustrated slavery. There are, it is true, those amongst 
them who have ventured to come forward as its apologists 
and advocates ; but it is easy to see that they undertake a 
task which they always fail to accomplish, and that their sup- 
pressions and exaggerations betray the truth. All that we 
can discover, when we search for facts, is the melancholy 
proof that there is no moral or social evil with which slavery 
is not identified, — that there is no moral or social tie which 
it does not unscrupulously and habitually violate, — and 
that, while it stifles the virtues and panders to the vices of 
the master, and thus contributes to his degradation, it sub- 
jects the slave to every influence which can thwart the moral 
design of human existence, and leaves him to become, so 
far only as he is an animal, a man. That, in our unavoida- 
ble, and not undesirable, intercourse with our fellow-citizens 
of the Slave States, we must be exposed to the social and 
moral influences which the slave-holder and the slave will 
necessarily exert everywhere about them and beyond them, 
and that these influences, if not guarded against at first, 
will spread a contagion in our midst from which we may find 
it difficult afterwards to escape, are propositions unfortu- 
nately proved by so many striking facts, that I shall only 
3* 



30 

take them for granted, while I add, that, if we have hearts, 
we must feel, and that we ought to feel, how nearly it con- 
cerns us to do what we can, at once and perseveringly, for 
the abolition of slavery. 

In the discussion of this part of my subject, I am obliged, 
from the want of time, to omit many more topics than I can 
touch upon. This you will perceive, when I remind you, 
that, in speaking of the political influences of slavery by 
which we are afliected, I might allude to the toleration of 
slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Colum.bia and 
the Territories of the United States, in all which all the 
States have a common interest, and in the former more 
especially, as the seat of the national government, — to the 
laws for the security of slavery and the slave-trade, whether 
passed by Congress for the District of Columbia, or by the 
legislatures of the several States, so far as they directly 
infringe the constitutional right of the free colored citizens 
of the Free States when temporarily resident in them, or 
conflict with our rights of navigation by removing colored 
seamen from our vessels in their ports, while they put it out 
of our power to resort to any legal means of redress, — to 
the reception of our agents despatched to South Carolina 
and Louisiana upon a legal errand, in whose persons every 
citizen of Massachusetts has been deprived of important 
rights, and subjected to the most contumelious and unwar- 
rantable maltreatment, — to the interference of the general 
government, as administered under slave-holding control, in 
regard alike to the Post-ofiice Department, in restraining 
the distribution of offensive publications through the mail ; 
the Revenue Department, in employing its officers and ves- 
sels in the detention, arrest, and imprisonment of fugitive 
slaves and free citizens connected with them ; the War 
Department, in making its garrisons alike slave-quarters and 
slave-prisons, and converting detachments of the army into 
body-guards of slavery ; and the Navy Department, in em- 
ploying our vessels of war under such directions, that the 
squadron upon the coast of Africa can render no effective 
service in arresting the foreign slave-trade, while the home 
squadron seems to have little other design or use than over- 
seeing and protecting the domestic slave-trade. I might 
also refer to the penal codes of the Slave States, in which 
sympathy with the slave is made to appear among the worst 
of crimes, and which have already visited upon citizens of 
Free States convicted of it the most odious penalties of the 
whipping-post, the pillory, the branding-iron, and the peni- 



31 

tentiary ; and also the scarcely less legitimate code of Lynch 
laws, and the mobs, riots, and murders, which all have learned 
to consider as the characteristic resort and main reliance of 
slavery. And to go only one step further with the bare 
enumeration of topics, I might ask you if you do not be- 
gin to think and feel how much in another way we are yet 
to have to do with slavery, when you are accosted by the 
fugitives, — men, women, and children, — who, in such in- 
creasing numbers, are presenting themselves amongst us as 
the meritorious objects of our Christian sympathy and aid ; 
who already in their settlements, with a population of twenty 
thousand souls, upon the Canada border, and in their smaller 
communities in our midst, doing for themselves in every 
way far better than we should expect of them, still look to 
us for aid in building their schoolhouses and churches, and 
in supplying many unavoidable wants, and must not look in 
vain. 

But slavery, it is said, with all its political pretensions 
and exactions, with all its corrupting social and moral influ- 
ences, must necessarily be short-lived ; and it is the argu- 
ment for our endurance of it that it will soon be defunct. 
Experience, indeed, does not confirm the theory ; the slave 
population rapidly increases, and never, during the existence 
of the federal government, has the system exhibited so 
much vigor, or made such sudden progress, as within a re- 
cent period. But, we are told, it will soon die out, at least 
in the old Slave States, especially in the grain-growing States, 
where it can no longer sustain a competition with the free 
labor now operating with so many facilities in all the Free 
States around them. Upon this point, I admit, that, if Slave- 
holding States could be assimilated to manufacturing corpo- 
rations, and might be placed under the management of 
shrewd Yankee directors, intent only upon pecuniary profits, 
and if the proposition were merely to discharge and send 
off one set of operatives when another could be obtained 
of greater efficiency and on better terms, the abolition of 
slavery might be easily eflected, and would be a matter of 
course. Bnt there is no parallel between the two cases ; 
Slave-holding States are any thing rather than associations 
based upon the application of skill and the employment of 
industry ; shrewd Yankee directors, or a class of leading 
citizens of such a character, can never be found in them ; 
and the operatives cannot be exchanged, while their em- 
ployers remain with them. There is no parallel between 
the cases ; and they who propose to get rid of slavery by 



32 

an economical theory overlook the fact, that for years and 
years it has been proved to be and has been felt to be a 
most unprofitable and onerous system, and fail to see that it 
has, nevertheless, been kept up, with its increasing burdens, 
simply because it is an institution, — a political institution, — 
to which the popular customs and manners and morals 
have become so adapted and assimilated, that, although all 
of them must be changed before the institution can be aban- 
doned, the continuance of the institution renders the change 
impossible. 

It is, however, asserted, as if it could not be questioned, 
that slavery must soon die out in Virginia, Maryland, and 
Kentucky. Look at the facts! There is Virginia, — the 
" ancient dominion " of slavery, — in a physical and in a moral 
view scathed and almost desolated by its influences, — its 
vast territory, to a great extent, unsettled and uncultivated, 
and the character of its population (except where it has 
come in contact with Free States) exhibiting unequivocal 
symptoms of a progressive degeneracy. When the Fed- 
eral Constitution was adopted, sixty years ago, the more 
intelligent statesmen of Virginia avowed their opposition to 
slavery, as unjustifiable upon principle, and incompatible 
with her interests. Previously to that period, the State had 
voluntarily prohibited the importation of slaves, and the 
people evidently felt and rejoiced to feel that the establish- 
ment of the federal government would facilitate their de- 
liverance from the burden under which they groaned. But 
nearly sixty years have passed away, and Virginia is still 
nothing more and nothing better, — changed only for the 
worse, — a Slave State still. The " mother of States," she 
has become so by sending her progeny of slaves and their 
masters into Kentucky and Tennessee, and throughout a 
large portion of the valley of the Mississippi ; and in this 
multiplication of her offspring, by such an agency in the 
extension of slavery, she seems doomed to exert her prin- 
cipal influence upon the character and condition of the 
country. But why is not Virginia a Free State ? Upon eco- 
nomical principles, and even of her own choice, she should 
have been so long ago. With natural advantages amply 
sufficient to stimulate the energies and reward the enter- 
prise and industry of a free population, — with natural ad- 
vantages enough to place her in population and wealth in 
advance of every Free State in the Union, — with every 
thing in her experience to have made her long since weary 
and sick of slavery, and every thing in the example of her 



33 

free neighbours to make her desirous of emulating them, 
why is she not free ? With her once lofty character and 
proud spirit, how can she stoop to slave-breeding as her 
principal resource and her di-^graceful distinction ? The 
fact is against the economist, but the reason is plain to any 
inquirer ; Virginia can be only what slavery has made her. 
Obliterate, if you can do so, every vestige of slavery ; ex- 
terminate alike the master and the slave ; leave none upon 
the soil, except the free laborers who have begun to till the 
western border ; let them be joined by the hardy and intelli- 
gent emigrants from the North, who will carry with them 
liberty and every social and political blessing in its train, — 
let Virginia in time thus become Massachusetts upon a larger 
scale, and she will be free, and prosperous, and happy. But 
without such an extermination of the master and the slave, 
what can be expected, but that they will remain together, — 
the master, from his position, becoming more and more 
dependent upon the slave, and the slave, from his treatment, 
less and less qualified for freedom, and both contributing to 
the utmost their joint influence to secure their mutual deg- 
radation ? In this unfortunate condition, so long as the 
opening of new slave-markets shall render slave-breeding 
lucrative, they must remain together ; and when this last 
resource shall fail them, then, and perhaps not till then, will 
the deep mystery of their fate be solved. 

Of Maryland, in regard to her condition and prospects, I 
need only repeat what I have said of Virginia. In conse- 
quence of the greater irruption of a free population, and the 
smaller number of slaves, it seems a more probable and 
practicable result that in time she may become a Free State. 
Still, upon her western and eastern shores the worst and 
most incurable effects of slavery may be distinctly traced ; 
and there seems to be but little, in the indications of public 
sentiment on the part of her free citizens, to encourage us 
to look to them for prompt and energetic action in favor of 
any adequate system of emancipation. Her position makes 
her the depot of the domestic slave-trade for the whole 
neighbouring region ; and while this slave-trade shall con- 
tinue, so long as the interior country shall furnish a surplus 
of slaves for coastwise exportation, and the extension of 
slavery into foreign territory shall keep up the demand for 
them, Maryland will be, and in the exercise of her political 
influence will prove that she is, identified with the Slave 
States. 

As for Kentucky, a hasty glance at her past course and 



her present condition will still further illustrate the view 
which I have presented. Nearly fifty years ago, upon the 
occasion of forming a new State Constitution, the attempt 
was made, with great discretion, and in the most conciliatory 
mode, to introduce a system of gradual emancipation. Al- 
though slavery at that period was but very limited in its 
extent, and existed in what is usually described as "its 
mildest form," it was felt to be an evil in all its influences, 
and a brief experience had shown it to be incompatible with 
the true interests of the State, To provide for her future 
welfare, to secure the development of her great natural 
resources, to enable Kentucky to start upon a fair race with 
her sister Ohio, and to redeem and purify the popular charac- 
ter, it was clear to the minds of her most intelligent citizens 
that she must disconnect herself from slavery ; and as the 
leading advocate of this policy, with his judgment enlight- 
ened by his heart, the young Henry Clay presented his 
first claims to the public admiration and gratitude. But 
with the combined efforts of the economist and the patriot, 
not unblessed by the prayers of the Christian, — with a clear 
view of results, — with all the persuasions and inducements 
which, upon public and private grounds, could be addressed 
to the citizens, the proposal was rejected ; and Kentucky, 
and, most unfortunately, Mr. Clay with her, became com- 
mitted to an interested and political devotion to slavery. 
Had her decision at that period been otherwise, how altered 
might have been the destiny of Kentucky, and how much 
might since have been accomplished, not only for Kentucky, 
but for the country at large, by the services of Henry Clay ! 
I cannot speak from any record of the exact state of the 
vote, or of the precise grounds upon which Kentucky, when 
she might have done it, — when it was so much easier for 
her than it has ever been since, or than it ever may be 
again, — refused to enter the ranks of the Free States. It 
is not difficult, however, to conjecture the single but mighty 
objection, and to trace it to its source : — the master could 
not consent to free himself from his slave. The chain of 
slavery is of necessity a double chain ; and when, by the 
force of prejudice and habit, and of moral degeneracy, it 
has become firmly welded and compacted, and has been 
hardened by time, it will be found to l3ind as closely across 
the hands of the master as around the neck of the slave. 
Yes, — such is the effect of slavery, — the master becomes 
as helpless as the slave is abject ; and it seems to be the 
retributive condition on which the master is permitted to 



35 

retain the power over his slaves, that he shall thereby lose 
the power over himself. 1 have but little doubt, that, fifty 
years ago, the judgment of nearly every slave-holder in 
Kentucky was convinced that the continuance of slavery 
was against his interest, and that his conscience admonished 
him that it was against his duty ; and yet I have as little 
doubt, that, with a perverted understanding and a seared 
conscience, many such a one went to the polls, and, with 
all the overbearing and contemptuous air of a slave-holder, 
refused by his vote to cease to be one. 

Nearly fifty years have passed away, and the decision of 
Kentucky remains unreversed. She has seen and she has 
felt the error of her decision. Looking, of course, with a 
jealous eye on her young rival, she has seen Ohio, with no 
advantage but that which makes the difference between a 
Free and a Slave State, far outstripping her in the rapidity 
and magnificence of her growth; — her population almost 
doubling at every decennial census, — a scene of beauty 
and grandeur overspreading her territory, — enterprise at- 
tracting and accumulating capital and investing it in every 
form of improvement, — education diff'using intelligence, — 
industry crowned with plenty, — science erecting its ob- 
servatory, — and the arts reviving in their classic glory. 
She has seen, too, by the side of Ohio, instinct with her 
spirit, because free like her, the younger Indiana, — the 
first settlers still living on her soil, and yet the number of 
her free citizens already exceeding that in Kentucky ; and 
by her side Illinois, — a free population rushing across 
her prairies, and the wealth of her mines already in the 
grasp of free labor ; and beyond these, resting on the bosom 
of the Lakes, and fed by the streams of life and business 
which flow into them, the new-born Michigan, and Wiscon- 
sin, a giant yet in embryo. All this astonishing and almost 
magical result of freedom Kentucky has been compelled to 
witness, as she has looked abroad in the direction of the Free 
States ; while, turning backward to Virginia and Tennessee, 
she has seen the contrast which they exhibit, and has at the 
same time felt it to her heart's core, in the humiliating con- 
sciousness of her own condition. 

Still, warned and rebuked as she has been by her observa- 
tion and experience, suffering incessantly the ill effects of 
her mistaken policy, Kentucky has all the while been un- 
willing and has seemed to be unable to relieve herself Her 
unwillingness and her inability are alike explained by the 
progressive increase of slavery, which has thus far proved 



36 

even more than a counterpoise to all the influences of free- 
dom. There has been, indeed, from time to time, a sljorht 
occasional struggle between the conflicting elements in her 
political condition ; and recently it has appeared as if the 
contest of 1797 might be renewed, and as if it were reserved 
for another youthful Clay to vindicate the honor of the name 
in the same cause with which the name had been at first so 
honorably associated. But mark the spirit and power of 
slavery, — how little it can now bear, and the violence of its 
retaliation. A free press was established at Lexington, with 
a Kentucky editor, Kentucky patrons, and exclusively de- 
voted to the most important means of promoting the welfare 
of Kentucky. With a directness and boldness truly Ken- 
tuckian, the question of slavery was argued upon its merits, 
and all the evils and dangers of the system were distinctly 
and unsparingly exposed. It was soon evident that there 
were eyes to read, minds to think, and hearts to feel ; and 
that they could not long read, and think, and feel in vain. 
Instantly the slave-holders were alarmed, became indignant, 
and " muttered revenge." While the noble-hearted editor 
was prostrated on a bed of sickness, unable to defend his 
property, though ready with his dying breath to avow his 
principles and to seal them with his blood, a mob in num- 
bers and in purpose, — the leaders of both parties vying 
with each other for the honor of conducting it, — assembled 
in open day, declared the danger of a free press, and, in all 
the power and dignity of unresisted lawlessness, determined 
forcibly to remove it. There being no resistance, they suc- 
ceeded in doing so ; the hazard and glory of the daring 
exploit having been generously shared by sixty "Kentucky 
gentlemen," whose names will be emblazoned in the annals 
of her chivalry. 

I know there are those who seem not to understand fully 
what this case means, and who indulge no sympathy with 
the heroic martyr. In common with the great mass of the 
non-slave-holding citizens of Kentucky, they could look 
coldly on, and, with indifl^erence or secret satisfaction, await 
the result and see it accomplished. It is this eflect on 
themselves and the many like them which opens to my view 
the most abhorrent feature of the transaction. The power 
of the mob was in the state of public sentiment ; and it was 
the pretended dignity of their proceedings, sustained, as 
they seem to have been, by the manifest approval or the 
silent sanction of the most respectable citizens, and justified 
in the end by the direct connivance of the judicial authori- 



37 

ties, that seems to me to make the duty most imperative to 
speak of all concerned as their conduct, rather than their 
reputation, deserves. The mob was suthciently disgraceful ; 
the " sixty Kentucky gentlemen " achieved a title to infamy, 
which, if they can die and not be forgotten, will not be cov- 
eted by their posterity ; but still more disgraceful was the 
mockery of a trial by which the mob was acquitted, and 
preeminent in infamy, as history should exhibit them, were 
the court and jury, who, with the law in their hands, and 
under oath to administer it, could suffer such a crime to 
escape unpunished. I say there are those who seem not 
fully to understand what this case means ; and I therefore 
dwell upon it to remark, that, when, at the close of a half- 
century, under the circumstances which I have described, 
in the midst of so much light reflected alike from the pres- 
ent and the past, with' the subject of slavery so constantly 
in the minds of men and in the hearts of women, with so 
much to show it to be expedient for both to make the master 
and the slave free, — when, in this age of benevolence, and 
in this professedly republican and Christian country, the 
attempt of an individual to discuss the subject of slavery in 
the Slave State supposed to be the most prepared for free- 
dom can result only in such unrestrained violence of a 
"respectable mob," and in such cooperation of a court and 
jury to overthrow the rights of the press, of person, and of 
property, the conclusion is at least a rash one, that slavery 
in Kentucky is on the point of dissolution. 

I am not unmindful that Cassius JM. Clay still lives, — 
that his press is reestablished, — and that, beyond the reach 
of the mob, and beyond the jurisdiction of the court, he still 
speaks to Kentucky through his press, and will be heard. 
May God spare his life, and spare his press, and give him 
an increasing measure of the wisdom and firmness which 
his position demands ! I can appreciate his eflbrts, and 
believe that it will be his lot to derive precious encourage- 
ment and an exalted fame from the first fruits of his labors ; 
but I adopt his conviction, when I declare it as my own, that 
none other than political, moral, and religious means, and 
these only after a long, and arduous, and dangerous struggle, 
will effect the overthrow of slavery in Kentucky. 

In treating thus fully the condition of slavery in Virginia, 
Maryland, and Kentucky, it may be supposed that I have 
not sufficiently met the point of the argument which it be- 
comes me to answer. It is argued, that, because these States 
are and can only be grain-growing States, it will not long 
4 



38 

be possible for them to rely on slave labor, when grain can 
be grown by free labor with so much greater advantage. 
Grain, we are told, may now be grown even in the Northern 
Free States, and transported by railroad and canal to the 
remotest markets which have been supplied by the Slave 
States, and sold there, when the price has not been kept up 
by a foreign demand, at so low a rate as to make its con- 
tinued production in the Slave States wholly unprofitable, 
and even sometimes ruinous. It seerns probable just now 
that the scarcity of bread-stuffs abroad, with the rapidly 
increasing consumption in this country, may cause the de- 
mand to be equal to the supply from all the States for some 
time to come, and may keep up the price sufficiently to 
remunerate the planter in the Slave States ; and it is to be 
remembered that in the States in question, in addition to 
grain, the growing of tobacco, a precarious, I admit, and 
not usually a profitable crop, and the raising of stock, not 
wholly unsuited to their slave-holding condition, will be avail- 
able resources. Even if these fail from the competition of 
free labor, the raising of negroes, of which a monopoly must 
be allowed to them, will continue to be suggested alike by 
the necessities and the degradation of their condition, and 
by the relation they will sustain to the growing slave-market 
of the cotton-planting States. But, after all, let the case be 
made out never so strongly against the economy and expedi- 
ency of slavery, — let the sacrifice of interest be what it mav, 
— let the profits of grain-growing wither from its grasp, — let 
the land become valueless, because with slave labor no crop 
can be grown upon it, — let the slave-holder be thus compelled 
to see himself impoverished, as well as to feel himself degrad- 
ed, I agree with Cassius M. Clay, and for the reasons I have 
given, that it will be the last effect of economical considera- 
tions to extort from him his consent to abandon slavery. 

"Leave it to itself, — let it alone, and slavery will die 
out ; and the annexation of Texas will only accelerate the 
result"; — so say the anti-abstractionists and the Free State 
Democrats, and all others who seek to excuse their indiffer- 
ence and inaction at the present moment. 

Do they reason from the past .'' This is not a new policy 
which is about to be tried. It is now the seventieth year of 
the independence of the United States ; — and we may learn 
wisdom from experience. The Declaration of Independence, 
it may be remembered, proclaimed the doctrine of human 
freedom and equality as the basis of our political creed. 
The preamble to the Constitution of the United States 



39 

avowed it to be an object of that great compact " to secure 
the blessings of liberty." We commenced our political ex- 
istence by calling ourselves republicans. At the formation 
of the Constitution, slavery, as a relic of the colonial system 
of Great Britain, was slightly infused into the existing organ- 
ization ; the foreign slave-trade was a legal traffic in Geor- 
gia and South Carolina, and tliere were more than half a 
million of slaves in all the States. Experience had then 
proved the evils of slavery ; except in the two States just 
named, it was discountenanced by public sentiment ; and 
the conviction prevailed, that its abolition must be a natural 
and necessary result of the change of government. But the 
slave-holders were not prepared at once to carry into effect 
the Declaration of Independence, to justify the preamble to 
the Constitution, and to prove themselves republicans ; and, 
rather than to offend them by contending for an abstraction, 
there were enough in the Free States, then as now, who 
chose to leave slavery to die of itself, rather than to attempt 
to strike the blow by which it might be destroyed. Upon 
this pretext, an easy consent was given to the " compromises 
of the Constitution," including the right to import slaves for 
twenty years. "Let it alone so long, and slavery will die 
out," was the lullaby of the anti-abstractionists of that day. 
"Although slavery is not smitten with an apoplexy," said 
JNIr. Dawes in the Massachusetts Convention, " it has re- 
ceived a mortal wound, and will die of a consumption," The 
experiment was then and thus first tried ; and it soon ap- 
peared that the case of the patient was entirely misunder- 
stood ; that no mortal wound had been given, but that, on 
the contrary, resuscitated, nourished, and protected by the 
Constitution, slavery had obtained a lease of life that might 
only expire with it. It was seen, too, that the provision for 
importing slaves into Georgia and South Carolina, whicli 
were the Texas of that day, had secured to slavery its princi- 
pal stronghold, — had then given, what has been so well de- 
scribed as again needed, " a Gibraltar to the South " ; and 
that it would have been far better that those States had not 
been annexed to the Union, rather than that the country 
should have suffered such lasting injury and irretrievable 
disgrace from the concessions which they extorted as the 
condition of annexation. 

The fact to which I have just adverted is so important, that 
I desire to ask your attention still more particularly to it. 
Before the formation of the Constitution, the foreign slave- 
trade had been expressly prohibited by all the States except 



40 

Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carohna, and the latter 
had virtually prohibited it by a capitation tax. It had been 
the prevailing expectation that it would be permanently pro- 
hibited by the new Constitution ; but the two former of the 
States mentioned had come into the Convention with the de- 
termination to resist any provision for this purpose, and de- 
clared through their delegates that they would refuse to con- 
federate, unless "their right to import slaves should remain 
untouched." Through their influence upon the committee 
who prepared the first draft of the Constitution, a clause was 
inserted denying to the federal government the power to 
prohibit the importation of slaves. 

This clause was opposed with great earnestness, and the 
discussion upon it, as preserved by Mr. Madison, and as 
sketched also by Luther Martin, shows us clearly how slav- 
ery was regarded at that period, and how, as much then as 
since, it became, in the words of Gouverneur Morris, the 
subject of " a bargain among the Northern and Southern 
States." It was resisted for the reason so strongly stated by 
Mr. Martin, of Maryland, that it would be "inconsistent 
with the principles of the Revolution, and dishonorable to 
the American character, to have such a feature in the Con- 
stitution." It was also opposed by Colonel Mason of Virgin- 
ia in a spirit most honorable to him, — in kindling language 
which showed how warm his heart was on the subject, — on 
the ground, that it was " essential, in every point of view, that 
the general government should have power to prevent the 
increase of slavery." Nothing can be more striking than 
the contrast between the character and influence of Virginia 
and Maryland, as they were exhibited at that period, and as 
they may be witnessed now in connection with slavery, — un- 
less it be the want of contrast, the perfect identity, between 
the spirit and action of Georgia and South Carolina then and 
now. "Religion and humanity," said Mr. Rutledge, scorn- 
fully, " have nothing to do with the question. Interest alone 
is the governing principle with nations. The true question 
is, whether the Southern States shall or shall not be parties to 
the union." " South Carolina and Georgia," said General 
Pinckney, "cannot do without slaves." "Georgia," said 
Mr. Baldwin, " is decided on this point." Could the question 
have been determined strictly on its merits, could no collater- 
al influence have been brought to bear on the delegates flom 
the North, had there not been an opportunity for " a bar- 
gain," the great issue between liberty and slavery might 
have been at once and for ever settled ; but, as the circum- 



41 

stances presented themselves, *'a compromise" was all 
that could be effected, and — I blush to say it — Massachu- 
setts, for a reason which must be explained in another con- 
nection, became the foremost and the most anxious to secure 
this compromise. The compromise provided that the feder- 
al government should not exercise the power to prohibit the 
slave-trade for a period of twenty years, and was adopted 
upon the motion of General Pinckney, of South Carolina, sec- 
onded by Mr. Gorham, of Massachusetts. Who can fail to be 
struck with the remark of Mr. Madison, before it was adopt- 
ed .'' " Twenty years," said he, " will produce all the mis- 
chief that can be apprehended from the liberty to import 
slaves. So long a term will be more dishonorable to the 
American character than to say nothing about it in the Con- 
stitution." With such a warning from such a source, the 
compromise was adopted, — Massachusetts, with all New 
England, and all the South, except Virginia, voting for it ; 
and Virginia, — thus performing her most glorious act by the 
hands of her worthiest sons, — with New Jersey, Pennsylva- 
nia, and Delaware, opposing it. I think you will now agree 
that I do not mistake the nature or exaggerate the influence 
of the act, when I refer to it as the first attempt for annexa- 
tion, coupled with the extension of slavery. 

Under the Constitution, then, slavery began to exhibit a 
thrifty growth, — doubling its numbers in little more than 
twenty years, — dying out nowhere, except, where its exist- 
ence was scarcely nominal, in a i^ew of the Northern States, 
— and living like a vampire, by imperceptibly extracting the 
life-blood from the domestic and social, as well as the politi- 
cal, institutions of the Southern States. It was seen and felt 
to be an evil ; it had then proved in many instances a bur- 
den of expense ; the testimony of enlightened statesmen and 
patriots was recorded against it ; conscientious individuals 
gave occasional proof of their ceasing to be responsible for 
it ; and Washington died, crowning the glory of his life by 
proving, in his last will and testament, that he could not die 
a slave-holder. Could it have been restricted to its original 
resources, and kept confined within the narrow limits which 
it occupied at the formation of the Constitution, the various 
influences opposed to slavery might have produced some visi- 
ble effect in diminishing it ; but reinforced by foreign sup- 
plies throughout the ill-tated twenty years, and stimulated 
without doubt by the culture of cotton in the Southern 
States, which had at that period but just been commenced, it 
was only seen to increase constantly and rapidly. This 
4* 



42 

period, too, had scarcely terminated, when the second annex- 
ation, effected by the negotiation ^vith France for the pur- 
chase of Louisiana, extended its limits and gave it still 
another resource in the growth and manufacture of sugar. 
With not quite so long an interval, the purchase of Florida 
constituted the third annexation, securing so much additional 
territory to the dominion of Slavery. 

The effect of these past annexations upon slavery is not a 
matter of speculation ; the facts are before us. By the first, 
the door was closed against the hope of its early abolition ; by 
the second, not only its extension, but the increase of its 
political power, and all the consequences involved in the 
Missouri compromise, were rendered inevitable ; of the third, 
the disgrace and the cost of the Florida war were the first 
fruits, while the admission of one divisible into two new Slave 
States is the forthcoming consequence. The results, exhibit- 
ed, as some like to calculate them, in figures, show an extent 
of almost a million of square miles, equal to about six hundred 
millions of acres, of slave-holding territory brought within the 
Union by virtue of the first three annexations, to which Texas 
will add more than one third as much more, — all which, 
together with the territory included in the old Slave-hold- 
ing States, will make the aggregate amount of more than 
1,500,000 square miles, equal to one thousand millions of 
acres, of slave-holding territory within the United States, in- 
cluding Texas. They also show the present slave population 
in the country to be three millions, distributed already 
throughout one half of the States of the Union, and thereby 
giving to the Slave States, according to the rule of the Con- 
stitution, as tested in the last national election, a proportion 
of political power in the House of Representatives and in the 
Electoral Colleges sufficient for the choice of one member 
by less than six thousand votes, while the Free States are 
hardly entitled to one member for upwards of ten thousand 
votes. 

By such facts — and I might proceed much further with 
interesting and instructive statistical details — it is seen at a 
glance, that the annexation of slave-holding territory has not 
as yet proved the means of furnishing a burial-ground for 
slavery ; and they who will reflect will be enabled to satisfy 
themselves, from the proofs before us, that the policy of an- 
nexation has interposed from time to time an cficctual obsta- 
cle to the means in progress for the diininution of slavery, 
and has been in fact the one thing needful to its steady and 
permanent increase. It is easy, 1 think, to show, that, slow 



43 

and difficult as must be that process, the only way to abolish 
slavery in a State is to confine it there ; to compel its citi- 
zens to submit to the necessity of its natural increase beyond 
their ability to sustain it ; to deprive them of the privilege of 
getting rid of the refractory and mutinous, and of the mis- 
chief of their example, by selling and sending them abroad ; 
to afiord no opportunity to the enterprising planter to remove 
his slaves to a more fertile region, "svhen his paternal acres 
have been exhausted ; and to cut off the last resource from 
those who remain at home, of breeding slaves to supply a 
foreign demand. I cannot allow myself the time to dwell 
upon this topic ; but the hints I have given will, I trust, 
enable you to attain some very obvious and important prac- 
tical conclusions ; and when you have done so, I shall de- 
sire you to consider whether you can deem it wise or safe to 
anticipate in the future from the same causes any other effect 
than what you now see they have produced in the past. As 
it is, with the light that must have pierced the blindness of 
all but those who will not see, how can you fail to perceive, 
that, in the project for the annexation of Texas, there are 
singularly coml3ined, as if culled for the purpose, all the 
worst peculiarities of all the preceding annexations ? Does 
not the parallel commence by its being regarded in the same 
light with the first annexation of Georgia and South Carolina, 
as determining the question whether at this moment slavery 
is to be arrested and the Slave States are to be thus notified 
of the decision of the country as well as of the age a<Tainst 
them, or whether, by the decision of the country against the 
age, it is to be sustained, extended, and, if possible by human 
means, perpetuated ? In the provisions of the joint resolu- 
tion, and in the formal legislation by which they are to be 
carried into effect, do you not discern the obnoxious design, 
all the evils and all the dangers, differing only so far as they 
are indefinitely magnified, of the Missouri compromise ? 
And furthermore, shocked as you have been by the atrocities 
of the Florida war, — estimating, as you are but just able to 
begin to do, its enormous cost, — do you not see, that, with the 
annexation of Texas, there may commence, and in all human 
probability there must commence, a series of wars alike with 
civilized and savage foes, which, in carnage and devastation, 
and in the expenditure as well of treasure as of blood, and in 
all disastrous and disgraceful consequences, will so far exceed 
the Florida war, as to cause it scarcely to be remembered } 
Let me once more employ the aid of figures. Consider 
Texas as embracing within its last claimed limits a territory 



44 

of nearly 400,000 square miles, equal to 250,000,000 acres. 
Endeavour to realize its extent by reflecting that it is capa- 
ble of containing fifty States of the size of Massachusetts, 
that it is more than twice as large as all New England and 
all the Middle States taken collectively, and that it is equal 
to more than one third of the whole territory included within 
the States already admitted into the Union. Consider, that, 
in a k\v years, taking the present Slave cotton and sugar 
States as a standard, it will be capable of employing and sub- 
sisting a slave population of at least two millions. Consider 
what a market for slaves must be opened to furnish the sup- 
ply which will thus be needed, and to what extent and for 
how long a period the business of rearing slaves in the old 
States may be continued and made profitable. Consider, 
that, with the slave population which I have supposed, the 
States into which Texas may be divided will be entitled to 
elect, according to the present apportionment, more than tifty 
memljers of the House of Representatives, two Senators for 
each State, and as many Presidential Electors as will be 
equal to the joint number of Senators and Representatives. 
Weigh carefully in your minds all these results, — which 
must be verified, if the future shall be like the past, if the 
Ethiopian shall not change his skin nor slavery its character, 
— and tell me, in the exercise of your sober judgment, what 
will be the effect of the annexation of Texas, — where we 
shall find ourselves, if the Union shall be preserved, a few 
years hence, — and what will be the condition and character 
of the Free States, if slavery shall be enabled to exert all its 
pernicious political and moral influences over them upon so 
enlarged a scale. Consider, further, that the necessary policy 
of slavery is one of continued annexation. See the manifest 
unwillingness to be content, even for a time, with the acquisi- 
tion of Texas. Contemplate the project already formed, 
already in progress, for the annexation of Calitbrnia ; and see 
how it may be followed, even at no distant day, by a scheme 
of bribery or violence that will bring within the Union the 
whole remaining portion of the Mexican Republic. See, too, 
the evidence that the slave-holding politicians, not satis- 
fied even with the vast extent of territory which they may de- 
sire and seize upon the continent, are about to extend their 
grasp to Cuba, and even have a design upon St. Domingo. 
With the policy they avow, with the motives which manifest- 
ly actuate them, ask yourselves, I pray you, where they will 
stop, so long as the Free States shall go with them and for 
them, and the lust of power and the cravings of interest shall 



45 

still beckon them onward. If you consider the projects 
which I have intimated Utopian and chimerical, tell me if 
there is one of them which has not been seriously proposed 
and urged, and whether either of them or all together are a 
whit more improbable than the present increase of slavery 
would have been deemed when the Constitution was framed, 
or than the annexation of Texas wa^s regarded not many 
years, and not very many months, ago. 

With this rapid and imperfect sketch of the successive re- 
sults of the annexation of Texas, if it can be effected, and if 
the policy in which it originated can be successfully carried 
on, I wish to combine a view of the opposite results which 
might be confidently anticipated, if the iniquitous scheme 
could now be defeated. If it were defeated, the advantages 
of a victory would inure to the Free States, since it must 
have been won by their spirited and united exertions, and it 
would prove a triumph of their principles. In such an event, 
they would for the first time feel their own strength, and their 
formidable and so long unconquerable adversary would feel 
it also ; and from that time forward, both would act upon the 
conviction that the political power of the country had changed 
hands, that the future course of slavery must be retrograde, 
and that its abolition was inevitable. A policy worthy of 
free states, intrusted for its execution to the worthy represent- 
atives of free states, would at once pervade the action of the 
national government ; the Constitution would in time be 
purged of its pernicious compromises ; the blessed influ- 
ence of a practical regard to equal rights would be witnessed 
in the entire system of legislation ; our citizens would have 
it in their power, and would find themselves induced by their 
interests and by all higher motives, to become republicans ; 
they would be content to improve, until they could exhaust 
them, the almost boundless and endless resources of their 
present territory ; and would furnish to the world an unpar- 
alleled, and as yet unimagined, example of what three 
hundred millions of freemen may become and do, when in- 
telligence and skill and industry, under the guidance and 
control of Christian morality, shall exert their full and last- 
ing influence upon the human condition. 

I proceed to a view of the subject, which I have reserved 
as the last in order, because in its nature it is distinct from 
all the others, and because in my own judg-ment it is compara- 
tively the least entitled to consideration. I see, however, 
from the evidence around me, that others regard it in a dif- 
ferent light and ascribe to it much practical importance. To 



46 

expose what seem to me their erroneous conceptions in sever- 
al respects, I shall freely discuss it, in the manner which 
befits my relation to those whom I shall be understood par- 
ticularly to address. I allude to what may be denominated 
the commercial view of the subject, proceeding upon tlie sup- 
position that the annexation of Texas will result in many ad- 
vantages to our merchants, ship-owners, and manufacturers. 
I must say again, that, in my judgment, this aspect of the 
case is far less worthy of consideration than any other, and I 
am free to confess that there are reminiscences and associa- 
tions connected with it which make it repulsive to me. It 
reminds me at once, and it requires me also to remind you, 
of what I omitted to state in my former reference to the un- 
fortunate compromise incorporated into the Constitution for 
the continuance of the foreign slave-trade. I merely stated 
that the compromise was the result of a bargain between the 
North and South ; but what the North gained by the bargain, 
and sought to bargain for, I forbore to mention. I have 
therefore now to present a commercial view of that measure. 
When the question upon the slave-trade first arose in the 
Convention, Massachusetts and the other Northern States 
were disposed to cooperate with Virginia in prohibiting it 
by the Constitution ; and at first the secession threats of 
Georgia and South Carolina were unheeded by them. But 
presently, as soon as the Convention proceeded to consider 
and act upon that section in the reported draft of the Con- 
stitution which requires "the assent of two thirds of the 
members present in each house " to pass a navigation act, 
it appeared that the Southern States had it in their power to 
retaliate upon the Northern, by insisting upon this provision, 
which might virtually deprive the North of all the anticipated 
benefit of such acts. The interest of navigation the South 
saw to be exclusively a Northern interest, and they seemed 
to regard it as no object for them to secure to their Northern 
neighbours an advantage over the European ship-owners, who 
otherwise might transport their products and furnish their 
necessary supplies. They had also many vague and indefi- 
nite apprehensions of the danger that might result from mak- 
ing it practicable for a bare majority, without their concur- 
rence, to pass navigation acts ; and it appeared, that, if they 
adhered to their purpose, they might carry votes enough with 
them to retain this restraining clause in the Constitution. 
The North, seeing their c\ue{ interest to be thus in jeopardy, 
became alarmed, and cast about for the means of warding off 
the impending injury. I blush now to add the remark, that 



47 

the two parties soon proved that they understood each other, 
and were ready enough to accommodate their differences 
upon the ground of a reciprocity ot^ interests. Give us up 
the slave-trade, said the South, and we will relinquish the 
restraint upon navigation acts. It is a bargain, said the 
North ; we will relinquish our principles against slavery, if 
we can secure our interests in navigation. " I desire it to 
be remembered," said a member from Massachusetts, "the 
Eastern States have no motive to union but a commercial 
one.'' " If the Northern States consult their interest," said 
a member from South Carolina, " they will not oppose the 
increase of slaves, which will increase the commodities of 
which they will become the carriers." In this mode, by 
these means, under the influence of such considerations, the 
compromise was efl^ected. Both the subjects in dispute were 
referred to a committee, and Luther Martin, who was a 
member, says, — "I found the Eastern States, notwithstand- 
ing their aversion to slavery, were very willing to indulge the 
Southern States at least with a temporary liberty to prose- 
cute the slave-trade, provided the Southern States would in 
their turn gratify them by laying no restriction on naviga- 
tion acts ; and after a very little time, the committee, by a 
great majority, agreed upon a report, by which the general 
government was to be prohibited from preventing the impor- 
tation of slaves for a limited time, and the restrictive clause 
relative to navigation acts was to be omitted." A few days 
afterwards w^e find General Pinckney, of South Carolina, 
commending "the liberal conduct of the Eastern States to- 
wards the views of South Carolina," which Mr. Madison 
explains as referring to the recent compromise. 

I state this case thus minutely that all may be satisfied I 
have not misstated it. I state all the circumstances, as ne- 
cessary to a complete explanation of a most important, 
and altogether the most unfortunate, act of the Convention 
which formed the Constitution. I refer to it, reluctantly and 
yet frankly, as an indelible blot upon the character of Mas- 
sachusetts, and as an emphatic warning to all the advocates 
of her commercial interests to beware of committing them- 
selves to any view of slavery which involves a postponement 
of principle to interest, and with this the sacrifice of her per- 
manent welfare, for the attainment of a slight, temporary, 
and even questionable advantage. 

But is the annexation of Texas of any commercial impor- 
tance to the United States ? Let me say, in the first place, 
that we do not need Texas merely for the purpose of making 



48 

an addition to our present country. On the contrary, the 
country, as it is, is large enough, and altogether too large, 
for all our imaginable commercial wants and uses, for ages 
to come. Our population must increase twenty and perhaps 
a hundred fold, our wealth must exceed that of Europe, — 
the accumulation of centuries, — before we shall begin to 
have more labor and capital than can be profitably employed 
upon our present territory. We do not need an enlargement 
in any direction to diversify our soil and climate, to increase 
our agricultural, mineral, or marine productions, to add to the 
extent of our seacoast, to give us greater facilities of coast- 
wise or inland transportation, to complete the routes of our 
railroads, to supply feeders for our canals, or waterfalls for 
our manufactories. Within our present limits we possess in 
abundance and variety all the resources which can stimulate 
or reward the utmost possible increase and diffusion of intel- 
ligence, skill, enterprise, and industry. For commercial 
purposes, too, the world has had experience enough to teach 
us that it is within a small and populous region, rather than 
where a sparse population is scattered over a wilderness, — 
that it is where industry and wealth can be concentrated, 
where labor can be most advantageously subdivided, where 
merchants and manufacturers may congregate, that commerce 
will be the most sure to flourish. Could our country be dimin- 
ished, rather than enlarged, in size, — could that large portion 
of our inhabitants who are all the while moving towards the 
frontiers, passing their lives, for all commercial purposes, 
most unprofitably, remain fixed, and be steadily employed in 
the pursuits of productive industry, — could our population be 
kept more together, become more assimilated in character, 
be brought more directly under common influences adapted 
to their intellectual and moral wants, — who can fail to see that 
important commercial as well as other still more valuable 
advantages might be secured, and that, in fact, the extension of 
territory beyond a corresponding increase of population and 
wealth is one of the most fatal errors in political economy? 
In the next place, if we must have more territory within 
our limits, what we least need, what we should least desire, 
for commercial purposes, is slave-holding territory. What 
we already have of slavery has proved only a constant draw- 
back, a vexatious hindrance, to our commercial progress. 
Our mercantile dealings with the Slave States have been a 
succession of practical lessons upon the commercial disad- 
vantages of slavery. Commerce delights in freedom, and 
can flourish only under the auspices of freedom. The mer- 



49 

chant who personifies the true idea of his profession should 
be one who with his own hands has built up his fortune, 
who has therefore all the intelligence, enterprise, persever- 
ance, and economy, and withal the strict integrity, which 
none but one who is brought up under free institutions is 
likely to possess ; and such a merchant, for the satisfactory, 
and, in the long run, for the most profitable, transaction of 
business, will desire to deal with others like himself It is a 
mistake to suppose that we reckon among our best custom- 
ers those who are so ignorant or necessitous that we may 
easily take advantage of them, those who are so reckless 
and thoughtless that we can never trust them from want of 
confidence in their character and honesty, or those who have 
so few mercantile ideas, and are so little accustomed to mer- 
cantile usages, that all our trade with them must be reduced 
to a simple barter. Take the case of the slave-holders, as 
we know them commercially. Except so far as they avail 
of the services of agents, how true is it that for the most part 
they seem to be incapable of transacting business in its most 
simple forms, that they have an utter distaste and aversion to 
it, that they loathe punctuality and promptness, and can nev- 
er habituate themselves to a regular method in their trans- 
actions, and that, from various causes, there is a constant 
risk in extensive dealings with them ! How true is it that 
nearly the whole of the business which can be carried on in 
the Slave-holding States is now transacted by foreign agents; 
that even the overseer of the plantation is hired from abroad, 
— too often a Yankee, — that the merchant who furnishes the 
supplies and sells the crop is a Yankee or a Scotchman, — 
and that, between the overseer and the merchant, the planter 
remains without employment, suffering all the evils of an un- 
concerned dependence upon agents, without occasion to exer- 
cise sagacity, to acquire habits of diligence and economy, 
and with his afl^airs in such a train, that in ordinary times 
he will be likely to become impoverished ! How true is it, 
that, as often as we have tried the experiment of extending 
our credits freely in the Slave-holding States, the first com- 
mercial revolution, a bank explosion or a fall in cotton, has 
produced a most meagre exhibit of assets in the hands of our 
debtors ! 

Looking at the state of things more generally, do we not 
see, at a glance, that nowhere in so limited an extent as in 
a slave-holding community do we find the elements of com- 
mercial enterprise and prosperity ? An immense proportion 
of the population are slaves, whose labor is scarcely suffi- 
5 



50 

cient to supply the wants of their masters, and who are 
doomed to subsist upon the slightest possible allowance of 
food and clothing. How much commerce can grow out of 
the supply of the wants of slaves ? A little salted meat, 
pork, and fish, of the lowest quality and value, — a {ew 
coarse cottons and woollens, — some rough-hide shoes, - — and 
hide-cuttings enough to make whips for them, comprise very 
nearly the variety of purchases which are made for the 
slaves. How is it possible for a population, through the 
supply of their wants, and I will add through tlie productive- 
ness of their labor, to do less for commerce than is done by 
a slave population ? And then, as to the wants of their mas- 
ters, considering how few the masters are, in proportion to 
the slaves, — with all their reckless prodigality and undis- 
criminating luxury, how comparatively little, much as it often 
exceeds what they pay for, is their aggregate consumption ! 
How little beyond the mere supply of personal wants does 
their condition call for or admit of! But little need be or is 
expended upon their buildings ; the cultivation of their plan- 
tations requires but i'ew implements and vehicles ; and be- 
yond sending away their crops and bringing back their scan- 
ty supplies, they have no disposition and no ability to engage 
in any business. There can be no greater mistake than to 
consider it for our benefit that they cannot manufacture for 
themselves, and that they must rely on us in a great measure 
to feed and clothe them, and to furnish the necessaries, con- 
veniences, and comforts which they pay for out of their crops. 
Abolish slavery, give them free labor, make them free labor- 
ers themselves, let them do enough for themselves to enable 
all the people to supply all their wants, and beyond supply- 
ing them to accumulate a surplus capital, — let education 
difTuse knowledge, — let labor be divided and subdivided, 
until all mechanical and manufacturing employments suited 
to their circumstances shall be introduced amongst them, — 
let public improvements be successfully prosecuted, — let 
them thus become intelligent and virtuous, and industrious 
and wealthy, and depend upon it we shall not have a dimin- 
ished or less profitable commerce with them, — they will 
only be larger and safer, and in all respects better, custom- 
ers than we have ever found them, — we shall still be Yan- 
kees enough to produce or manufiicture or import what, with 
their rapid increase of wants, they will still need, and they, 
as well as we, shall realize, that, without Texas, the present 
country — only let it be a free country — may become all 
that commerce or patriotism can desire. To abolish slavery 



51 

within the country, therefore, rather than to extend the 
country for the sake of increasing slavery, is the true dictate 
of a commercial policy. 

I have still to notice another suggestion, too frequently ut- 
tered to do credit to our general sagacity, and only serving 
to expose an influence which all must regret to he ohliged 
to regard as operative in this case. In vague terms, it is in- 
timated that Texas will be a vast cotton region, that the Free 
States are to be filled with cotton manufactories, and that it 
will be a master stroke of policy to obtain for our future use 
a monopoly of all the cotton which the continent can pro- 
duce. There are also some who have deluded themselves by 
a syllogism, and who boldly go so much further as to say, 
that, as the cotton manufacture is, or is fast becoming, our 
principal interest, and as slavery has produced cotton, and is 
necessary to produce it, it is essential to the cotton manufac- 
ture, and therefore all-important to us, to secure all the cot- 
ton land we can, and also to secure and retain slavery with 
it. If this indeed were so, how difficult should we find it 
to discover any mode of escape from the all-absorbing vortex 
of iniquitous and accursed prosperity to which we should be 
hurrying ! How easy would it be to read the seeming 
design of Providence in ripening the harvest of which we 
had sown the seed in our first political sacrifice of moral 
principle, — in our first consent to sustain slavery ! 

I have already reminded you that the fatal permission to 
Georgia and South Carolina, to import slaves for twenty 
years, was given principally through the agency of Massachu- 
setts, just at the period when the culture of cotton had taken 
its first start, and when this importation of slaves seems to 
have been the necessary instrumentality by which it was to 
be extended. Very shortly afterwards, Massachusetts al- 
most seems to have contributed her further agency in remov- 
ing the only obstruction to the profitable employment of 
slaves in this culture by the invention of the saw-gin, through 
her citizen, Eli Whitney. With the slaves to cultivate it, 
and the saw-gin to clean it, the supply of cotton soon began to 
increase, and has continued to increase in a rapidly augment- 
ing ratio, until, in contrast with the fact, that in 1784 an im- 
port of eight bags into Liverpool was seized by the custom- 
house on the ground that cotton was not the produce of the 
United States, the slave region is now furnishing an annual 
supply of upwards of two millions of much larger bags, the 
value of which at the present depressed prices falls not 
much short of seventy millions of dollars, — constituting the 



52 

raw material the manufacture of which has secured to Great 
Britain nearly all her wealth, commerce, and power, and 
which has begun to do as much, with a flattering prospect 
that it will do much more, for the country of its growth. 

Now, if it were as true that cotton must be as that it has 
been cultivated by slaves, and that for all the profit derived 
from its culture and manufacture we must be primarily in- 
debted to slavery alone, I should say, — as who, speaking 
in the fear of God and the love of man, would not say? — 
Perish prosperity, and abolish slavery, and let us be content 
and be resolved never to manufacture or wear cotton, if, 
while cotton grows, slavery must grow with it, and nothing 
but the sacritice of our profits and comforts can check their 
growth. JBut it need not be so. In this heart-chilling rea- 
soning, we have begun by yielding to a false assumption. 
The syllogism fails in its minor premise. The cotton manu- 
facture is conducive to our prosperity, but slavery is not es- 
sential to the cotton manufacture. All that the slave con- 
tributes is human labor ; human labor, therefore, is all that is 
essential ; and if that can be contributed otherwise than by 
slaves, slavery is not indispensable; if it can be otherwise 
contributed so that it will be more profitable, slavery is not 
expedient; and consequently, if slavery has been an unne- 
cessary and the least profitable mode of labor during the 
whole progress of the cotton culture, all the improvements 
and prosperity resulting therefrom have been retarded and 
diminished by our resort to slavery. 

The only question, therefore, is, whether human labor can- 
not be obtained for the culture of cotton in some other mode 
than by making slaves of the men who perform it. The 
labor of slaves, as all know, is reluctant, compulsorv, stint- 
ed ; a large gang of slaves, under the lash of the overseer, 
will not perform as much as a few free laborers, left to work 
by themselves. Why, then, are not fVee laborers employed in 
the cultivation of cotton ? This question lias usually been 
answered by stating, as if all admitted it, that white men 
only can be free laborers, and that none but the negro can 
bear the climate of the cotton region. But the lime has 
gone by to grant eitiicr of these postulates ; there are many 
free negroes, and the climate of a large portion of the cot- 
ton region is claimed and proved to be as healthy for the 
white man as the climate of any part of the country. One 
of the principal reasons for the annexation of Texas is, that, 
unless it is joined to the United States and made a slave-hold- 
ing country by our unconsiitutional legislation, it will be- 



53 

come a free cotton-growing country ; that, if the Constitu- 
tion of the United States cannot pursue them as fugitives, our 
slaves will escape into it, and prove that they can become 
free laborers ; and that the free-labor cotton of Texas will 
then he supplied to the foreign market at a lower rate than 
the slave-labor cotton of the United States. If our slave- 
holders believed that Texas without slavery could not raise 
cotton, why did they not leave her to her fate, when, in 
1829, the Mexican government abolished slavery ? Every 
one should understand the case sufficiently to bear in mind 
that it was the fact that Mexico had become a free coun- 
try, and the belief that the cotton-plant would thrive in 
Texas under the cultivation of her free laborers, and that 
slavery could not long be sustained in their neighbourhood, 
that alarmed the slave-holders, and gave the first impulse to 
the project of annexation ; and every cotton manufacturer 
should now see and feel that in the success of the project 
the gain of the slave-holder is his loss ; that the application 
of free labor to the cotton culture, under such circumstances 
as to demonstrate that it is practicable and expedient, and, 
by reason of the competition, to make it unavoidable to in- 
troduce it into the Slave States, is a result which he should 
be especially solicitous to accomplish ; that therefore, on the 
score of interest alone, — not to urge it upon him on any 
ground of principle, — and looking only to one of its indi- 
rect consequences, he should be an opponent of the annex- 
ation of Texas. 

1 feel that I have proceeded far enough, though but a 
single step, in speaking of the connection between cotton 
and slavery. All that cotton requires for its cultivation and 
nianulacture is human labor and skill, singularly diversified 
and beautifully combined. For this labor and skill, in every 
stage succeeding the growth and gathering of the crop, it is 
indebted to freedom ; the saw-gin, the throstle, the mule, 
and the power-loom are all the inventions and appliances of 
free genius and labor. The slave is required, the slave 
can 'oe employed, only upon the plantation ; but let me say 
that the time has come when men of common sense are or 
should be convinced that the slave is not needed and should 
not be employed even there ; that his place may be better 
supplied by a freeman ; and that the master, if he consult 
his interest or his duty, need not look beyond his slave to 
obtain a freeman. Let me venture to say that the time has 
come when the free negro — even the fugitive from slavery 
who has the good fortune to remain in safety — is seen to 



54 

aspire to the improvement attainable by other human beings, 
and when he is beginning to prove himself capable of attain- 
ing it, — sufficiently so, at least, to convince us all, beyond 
the possibility of a doubt, that, with free hands and for' fair 
wages, all who are slaves can and will labor for their masters, 
or for themselves, and thus indirectly for us, far more dili- 
gently, and with greater profit, than when shackled and 
scourged, and subject to all the disadvantages of thtir pres- 
ent condition. 

I will briefly present another view. Let Texas be an- 
nexed to the United States, — let the slave population amount 
to what I have previously estimated it to be, — let it be cov- 
ered with cotton plantations, — you will at once see that 
such an immense growth will produce a surplus of product, 
far, far exceeding what is now, or soon or perhaps over can 
be, wanted for the manufactories of the country. Already, 
without Texas, we can manufacture but a small proportion 
— scarcely a fifth — of our crop, and all the rest goes to 
Europe, principally to England. The export is so large, 
that, although through the agency of commerce it becomes 
exchanged for foreign productions, which are brought back 
and distributed through the country, and thus a great gen- 
eral benefit is derived from it, it has nevertheless had the 
effect to produce a peculiar commercial sympathy and sense 
of mutual obligation between the planters and those who 
are thus their principal customers across the Atlantic, and to 
lead the plave-holding politicians always to favor a tariff that 
should have a partial regard to the interests of these foreign 
buyers, and that should operate against, rather than in favor 
of, our own manufactures, and thus withhold the encourage- 
ment and facilities to domestic industry so much needed and 
prized by the people of the Free States. This is one of the 
cases in which a conflict of interests has produced discord 
between the two sections of the country ; and in this par- 
ticular case all amongst us see and feel that whatever con- 
tributes to extend the cotton-exporting interest, to strengthen 
the bond of commercial alliance between the South and 
Great Britain, to lead them to undervalue their commercial 
relation to the North, to make our products and manufactures 
less needful to them, and to put them more in the way of 
obtaining their supplies from abroad, can hardly fail to prove 
injurious to our interests, and must come in aid of the many 
other causes which, like this, through the influence of slav- 
ery, will operate to divide rather than to keep the country 
together. If, while we have already cotton land enough, and 



55 

more than enough, for our manufactures and commerce for 
generations to come, Texas were not doomed, because of 
slavery, to become for the most part only a cotton-growing 
region, — if a body of enterprising free inhabitants could be 
encouraged to apply their intelligence and skill, as well as 
their more economical and effective labor, to the multiplica- 
tion of the productions of her soil, the apprehended evil 
might be obviated, and a result of great general advantage 
might be secured. But, because of slavery, this may not 
be ; and the only result which is practicable is, to increase 
the exports of cotton, to strengthen the foreign interest and 
the foreign influence which proceed from this source, and to 
reinforce, until it shall become unconquerable, the political 
party which is pledged to an anti-tariff policy. Already, in 
advance of the annexation, we have decisive evidence of the 
design of its advocates to commence a new and formidable 
attack upon the existing tariff. The President, who was 
nominated and chosen to secure the annexation, is seen to 
be directing his second movement against the tariff. The 
Secretary of the Treasury, elevated to his post as the most 
undaunted and unscrupulous friend of annexation, is about 
to prove himself also the most unyielding enemy of a pro- 
tective policy. The party leaders and the party presses are 
already arraying themselves in support of the administration 
upon both these issues ; and since it is demonstrable that 
the same power which shall bring Texas into the Union will 
be able and sure to reduce the tariff, our manufacturers, if 
they once more look towards Texas, may be able to dis- 
cover in what quarter their danger lies. May others see 
that they discern at once their danger and their duty ! 

I have thus explained the views which I entertain in re- 
lation to the annexation of Texas, and the aspect of slavery 
in the United States in connection therewith ; and I have 
referred to what seem to me very manifest misconceptions of 
the nature and bearings of this great question. I have no 
time for recapitulation, nor is it necessary. It is enough if 
I have brought you to the conclusion, that opposition to the 
extension of slavery is a most imperative and solemn duty at 
the present moment ; and my whole purpose will have been 
accomplished, if I have also induced you to see and feel, 
that, in the event of the annexation of Texas, our political 
and moral welfare and safety will require that we should at 
once resolve, and deliberately prepare ourselves to act upon 
the resolution, to make every possible effort, and to exert all 
our influence in our various relations, — public and private, 

L.ofC. 



56 

political and religious, — to effect as speedily as mW be 
the abolition of slavery in the country, or our delive^ice 
from it. 

I have ventured to dissent from the current opinion^yi[iat 
slavery may be expected and should be left to die of i^Af ; 
and on the contrary I have exhibited the rapid growthSnd 
formidable power of slavery as a political institutior^. and 
have endeavoured to show how arduous, difficult, and danger- 
ous may be the struggle in which it shall be overthrown. 
Still I do not despair of its overthrow ; in the worst event, 
left to itself, when the measure of its iniquity shall be full, 
the fate of every corrupt political institution must await it. 
I do not despair of an agency that shall produce a more 
beneficent result. I have laith in God, in the prevalence of 
truth, and the omnipotence of love. I have faith in man ; I 
feel the force of the indissoluble tie of human brotherhood ; 
and I know that the cause of philanthropy, if a few are 
faithful to it, must advance, and that, in the end, it will bless 
all whom it can reach. T cannot, therefore, be one of those 
who neither make an effort, nor form an opinion, nor indulge 
a feeling, upon this subject. Least of all can I sympathize 
with such as regard the present state of public feeling as a 
temporary excitement, and affect to believe, that, with the 
consummation of the annexation, all will pass over and be 
forgotten. Pass over ! The cloud of doubt, anxiety, and 
distrust will soon pass over, to reveal the sun and stars of 
the moral firmament, which illuminate and cheer the path of 
duty ; but who can believe that what is not a shadow, but 
substance, not fleeting error, but solid and lasting truth, can 
be thus instantly dispersed ? Good seed in good ground, — 
a righteous purpose in warm hearts, — under the smile of 
heaven, must it not spring and grow, and bring forth fruit .'' 
Pure love of suffering humanity, once kindled in the human 
bosom, can it be extinguished ? Pass over and be forgotten ! 
The past itself, fellow-citizens, must pass away from our 
remembrance, — all its records of glory and lessons of duty 
must be obliterated from our memory and expunged from 
history, before the present can exhibit so unworthy a relation 
to it. Do we forget who and wliere we are .'' Can we stand 
together here, so near our fathers' graves, and fail to be 
reminded that their principles were destined to be immortal ? 
While Faneuil Hall stands, must not Massachusetts stand, 
erect and firm in support of Liberty, in opposition to Slav- 
ery .•* While stands the State-PIouse, must not Massachu- 
setts stand, true to the spirit of the Anti-Texas pledge 
which ivas taken and recorded there ? 



146 















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